TAV Macedonia appoints Metin Batak as General Manager

TAV Macedonia, a subsidiary of TAV Airports, appoints Metin Batak as its new General Manager, effective as of 1st October 2020. Alper Ersoy will be leaving his post as GM to be appointed as the General Manager of TAV Georgia, which operates Tbilisi and Batumi Airports. “During my tenure at TAV Macedonia, we’ve managed to triple the number of passengers in both Macedonian airports. Together with our exceptional team of employees and in close collaboration with our stakeholders, we proceeded to establish Macedonian airports as a leading hub in the Balkans, providing an excellent passenger experience. Although I’ll be missing my time in Macedonia, I’m confident that Skopje and Ohrid airports will continue to progress, contributing highly to the development of the country,” said Alper Ersoy.
“I’d like to thank to my colleague Alper Ersoy for his valued leadership contribution for the development of Macedonian airports. Both of us have been working on the Macedonian market for the last 10 years, together with the whole TAV Macedonia managerial team whose complementary skills were jointly combined in order to achieve a fast development of the Macedonian airports. We will continue to lead TAV Macedonia’s team on this path we have established, working hard to further develop both airports in Skopje and in Ohrid, at the same time contributing to the development of the Macedonian economy”, said Metin Batak, TAV Macedonia General Manager.  
Metin Batak has been a part of TAV Macedonia top-management since TAV’s entrance to the Macedonian market in 2009. He has more than 27 years of working experience in different sectors. Batak graduated from Business Administration and Marketing at Marmara University in Istanbul and started his career in Dogus holding as an Internal Audit Supervisor in 1993. Then he worked as the Accounting and Financial Manager for Dogus Media Group, and then as an Accounting Manager for TuvTurk Istanbul. In 2006 he joined TAV Airports Holding, working as a Accounting Manager at the Groups’ headquarters in Istanbul. From 2010 until 2015 he was TAV Macedonia Financial and Administrative Affairs Manager. Since 2015 until now, he was TAV Macedonia Deputy General Manager for Finance and Administration and Chief Financial Officer of TAV Tunisia at the same time. Batak is a member of the Istanbul Chamber of Certified Public Accountants. 
Besides Batak as a General Manager, TAV Macedonia management team, in terms of airport operations, is lead by Nejat Kurt, TAV Macedonia Deputy General Manager for Operations.  By the leadership of TAV, Skopje Airport was awarded with the prestigious Airport Service Quality (ASQ) award by Airports Council International (ACI), 5 times by now. The last ASQ award Skopje International Airport received in March 2020 in the category of airports from 2 to 5 million passengers annually. Previously, ASQ awards were received for 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2018, in the category of airports under 2 million passengers annually.  After finishing 2019 with 2,7 million passengers at both Macedonian airports – Skopje International Airport and Ohrid St. Paul the Apostle Airport, which is a 14% increase on the annual level, TAV Macedonia marked 15% passenger’s number increase in the first 2 months of 2020 as well, until the beginning of COVID-19 crisis in March 2020 when both Macedonian airports were closed by the Government for 3,5 months. After its reopening in July 2020, the passenger traffic at both Skopje and Ohrid airports is slowly recovering. For the period January-August it decreased by 68%, compared with the same period in 2019.