TBILISI AIRPORT HUB
Tbilisi International passed five million passengers for the first time in 2025 — 5.4 million, +13% — TAV extended its concession to 2031 with a build-out beyond ten million, and Georgia’s three airports closed a record 8.5 million.
Seventeen kilometres southeast of the centre, TBS is the busiest of Georgia’s three international airports and the hub of Georgian Airways: 5.4 million passengers in 2025, up 13%, with the five-millionth passenger — a Frenchman bound for Paris — honoured on December 5. Over 45 airlines fly from TBS to more than 25 countries; the busiest corridors are Istanbul (52 weekly flights), Tel Aviv (23), Dubai (21), Baku (21) and Yerevan (21). Nationally the three airports served a record 8.495 million passengers (+14%) on 77 airlines and 125 destinations, with Tbilisi taking 65.4% of air arrivals. The airport bus 337 runs to Station Square for one lari; Bolt is the honest alternative.
In January 2026 TAV Airports — operator since 2005, part of Groupe ADP — secured a five-year extension of the Tbilisi concession to the end of 2031, in return for expanding capacity beyond ten million passengers a year. The arc justifies the bet: when TAV took over in 2005 the airport handled 567,000 passengers; twenty years and $230 million of investment later it handles ten times that. Kutaisi (the budget gateway west) and Batumi (the summer coast) divide the spillover, but the capital keeps the flag network.
THE TIO READ
TBS is compact and quick — arrive two hours before departure, not three. For the city, take bus 337 if you travel light (one lari to Station Square); after midnight, Bolt at 25–35 lari is the only sane option. Watch the Turkish and Gulf corridors: they are the airport’s real growth engine.
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