12. 08. 10. - 14:00

VIA passenger numbers up amid lobbyist controversy

Vienna International Airport (VIA) has revealed it handled more passengers year on year last month as the row over the airport's alleged cooperation with a disputed lobbyist intensifies.

VIA announced today (Thurs) its number of passengers jumped by 11.3 per cent from July 2009 to 2,032,579 last month, adding that the number of passengers from the first six months of last year to the same time span of 2010 improved by 6.6 per cent.

Flughafen Wien AG, the company which manages the airport, further said the number of overall flights arriving and departing at VIA edged up by 0.8 per cent year on year last month.

This comes says after Die Presse claimed Peter Hochegger received around one million Euros for consulting VIA between 2004 and 2009. The Viennese daily’s report claims that the sum was transferred in tranches to "disguise the overall amount".

Peter Kleemann, a spokesman for the airport, dismissed the claimed amount and added that not Hochegger personally but his agency Hochegger.com had been commissioned by VIA.

The VIA official claimed Hochegger cooperated with the airport between 2004 and 2007 to "support its public relations efforts". Massive delays in building VIA’s new terminal "Skylink" were uncovered at that time, while it emerged last year that costs soared from initially 400 million Euros to around twice that sum.

Kleemann claimed Hochegger received not more than 200,000 for his publicity work.

Prosecutors are currently examining alleged payments from Telekom Austria (TA) for Hochegger, according to reports. The partly state-owned mobile communications firm transferred around 6.5 million Euros to Hochegger and fellow lobbyist Walter Meischberger, according to recent reports.

Federal Railways (ÖBB) have come under fire earlier this week when it was claimed that the firm paid Hochegger four million Euros between 2002 and 2008.

Hochegger, a close pal of former Freedom Party (FPÖ) Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser, was involved in a controversial privatisation in Grasser’s term in 2004. The federal real estate managing company BUWOG was sold for 961 million Euros to investment firm Immofinanz in what former finance minister office manager Michael Ramprecht labelled a "pre-arranged deal" last year.

Ramprecht was recently sentenced to a suspended fine of 3,600 Euros. He appealed the verdict.

Hochegger and Meischberger – Grasser’s best man – received almost 10 million Euros for their lobbying activities for Immofinanz, and prosecutors checking insider knowledge accusations as rival competitor CA Immobilien offered just one million Euros less in the non-public tender for BUWOG.

People’s Party (ÖVP) Justice Minister Claudia Bandion-Ortner announced earlier this week Grasser – who is married to Fiona Pacifico Griffini, a member of the Swarovski family – will be questioned by officials checking the controversial BUWIG deal "soon".

Some Social Democrats (SPÖ) and opposition politicians have accused juridical authorities of making too little progress in investigating headline-hitting cases such as the BUWOG "scandal".

Meanwhile, reports have it that two apartments of a former Skylink project manager were raided over slush money claims.

VIA promised only a few weeks ago the construction of the terminal – which kicked off five years ago – will continue without any further delays. Skylink was initially set to open ahead of the 2008 European Football Championships.

Supervisory board head Christoph Herbst said the VIA board ensured costs of building the new terminal would not surpass 830 million Euros. The lawyer – who became a household name by representing the victims of "incest monster" Josef Fritzl –added there was no need to change the scheduled opening date of mid-2012.

Work at Skylink came to a halt some months ago after massive cost overruns were revealed by magazine profil. The Federal Audit Office (RH), which checked the books, is expected to present its findings shortly. Construction was restarted recently, but profil claimed only around 100 workers were currently busy.

The provincial governments of Vienna and Lower Austria hold shares in Flughafen Wien AG, and especially Vienna leaders are reported of fearing RH will present its report ahead of the 10 October city elections. The project is already widely regarded as one of the biggest business scandals in post-war Austria regardless of what the RH’s report holds.

Peter Malanik, co-chief of Austrian Airlines (AUA), recently criticised VIA also for its "long waiting times". The businessman claimed passenger service was worse than it many comparable aerodromes, adding that VIA was charging aviation companies too high fees.

AUA, which was taken over by Germany’s Lufthansa last year, is VIA’s biggest customer as almost one in two movements at VIA in 2009 was an AUA flight.

VIA officials reacted to the criticism by promising to check where improvements were possible to avoid a worsening of the "excellent cooperation" between the airport and the airline.