Critical analysis of the tender launched by the state enterprise Chișinău International Airport for the Master Plan “Development of the activities, territories and facilities of AIC”, achizitii.md no. 21561459 / MTender ocds-b3wdp1-MD-1770301620149, published on 5 February 2026. Situation as of 2 October 2026.

Overall conclusion

Chișinău International Airport (AIC) is buying, for 20 million lei, a 20–30-year master plan for two airports, Chișinău and Mărculești, although the tender title names only the first. The tender has no valid winner: the National Agency for Solving Complaints (ANSC) has twice annulled AIC’s choice. The prices offered are normal for the European market, so the core problem is not cost but method. The master plan is being commissioned without the comparative network study that should first have set the role of each airport in the country, including Bălți-Leadoveni. Such a study was launched by the Government in 2020 and abandoned without explanation. The airport already has a master plan from 2010, not updated for 16 years and ignored by the terms of reference. The terminal extension and the investments at Mărculești were decided before the new plan. The tender documents mention neither the historical pollution at Mărculești nor the lack of a technical assessment of its runway. The new plan therefore risks validating, after the fact, decisions already taken, instead of providing their basis.

Basic concepts: the airport and the master plan

How to read this article. This section briefly explains how an airport works and what a master plan is; the rest of the analysis builds on it. Technical terms are explained when they first appear and are collected in the Glossary at the end.

A master plan answers a simple question: what needs to be built at an airport, where and when, so that it can handle the traffic of the next 20–30 years? To understand the answer, one first needs to know the parts of an airport.

How an airport is organised

Planners divide an airport into three main areas.

Airside. The controlled-access area where aircraft move. It contains the runway, on which aircraft land and take off, the taxiways linking the runway to the parking positions, and the apron, where aircraft stand for boarding, refuelling and loading.
Passenger terminal. The building where passengers check in, drop their baggage, pass security screening and border control, and then reach the boarding gate.
Landside. The city-facing side: access roads, car parks, bus or rail stops.

Next to these are the support facilities: the cargo terminal, aircraft maintenance hangars (MRO, “Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul”), the fuel farm, the control tower and the rescue and firefighting service.

Capacity

Capacity is the central concept of any master plan.

Annual traffic is measured in Mpax, millions of passengers per year. Riga, for example, handles about 7 Mpax.
A runway is measured in movements per hour. A movement is one landing or one take-off.
Everything is sized for the peak hour, not the daily average.
An airport’s capacity is set by its weakest component, the “bottleneck”. A runway able to handle 30 movements per hour is useless if the apron has only 8 aircraft stands.

What a master plan is

The master plan is the strategic document that sets the physical development of an airport over 20–30 years. The reference methodology is the airport planning manual of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), Doc 9184, Part 1.

The master plan says what is built, where on the site, when (in phases triggered by traffic growth) and roughly at what cost. It does not say how to build in detail; that is the role of the detailed design, which comes later.

The principle of progressive updating. Annex 14 to the Chicago Convention (Volume I) recommends that a master plan be reviewed periodically, taking account of current and future traffic. ICAO Doc 9184 sets out the rule in two steps:

every year, the traffic assumptions (passengers and aircraft movements) are compared with actual traffic;
every 5 years, the plan is fully reviewed, or earlier if economic, operational, environmental or financial conditions change.

The phases of a master plan are triggered by traffic thresholds, not calendar dates. The annual check therefore shows when the next phase must begin. The pace varies between countries: in the United States, FAA guidance sets no fixed interval and requires an update when the plan’s assumptions no longer hold. We have not identified an express obligation with a fixed deadline in Moldovan law; the 5-year rule of the 2010 plan was a commitment written into the plan itself, in line with the ICAO recommendation.

The same document has different names in different countries:

France: Schéma de Composition Générale (SCG);
United States: it includes an Airport Layout Plan (ALP), a site plan approved by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA);
Romania: procurement documents use the formula “investment plan/master plan”.

The stages of a master plan

Stage 1. Inventory and diagnosis: what exists and in what condition.
Stage 2. Traffic forecasts: how many passengers, tonnes of cargo and movements there will be in 5, 10, 20 and 30 years, including at peak hour.
Stage 3. Facility requirements: translating forecasts into floor areas and equipment, for example square metres of terminal or aircraft stands.
Stage 4. Alternative scenarios: usually three options, compared through multi-criteria analysis, i.e. scores for cost, operations, environment and flexibility.
Stage 5. Recommended plan and phasing: the chosen option, divided into phases tied to traffic thresholds.
Stage 6. Investment and financial analysis: the cost of each phase and the sources of funding.
Stage 7. Environment and land use: noise, environmental impact and obstacle limitation surfaces, i.e. the surrounding areas where tall structures are prohibited for flight safety.

A master plan usually takes 8–18 months. amd.sigma estimated 8–12 months; Riga needed 18 months, and Poland’s new central airport (CPK) 13 months.

Who prepares master plans

There are three types of firms on the market:

specialised airport consultants: NACO (Netherlands), ADPI/Artelia Airports (France), amd.sigma (Germany);
large engineering firms with an airport division: Ineco (Spain), Setec (France), Dohwa (South Korea);
airport operators that also sell consultancy: Munich Airport International, the owner of amd.sigma, or Korea Airports Corporation.

A typical team brings together an airport planner, a forecasting specialist, an airside engineer, a terminal architect, an environment and noise specialist and an economist.

1. The tender has no valid winner

Item	Value
Contracting authority	State enterprise Chișinău International Airport
Procedure and criterion	Open tender, lowest price
Estimated budget	MDL 20,000,000 excluding VAT (about €994,000)
Bid deadline	28 April 2026
Performance period	12 months, in 4 stages (the notice initially stated 180 days)

AIC chose the fourth-lowest bid. By decision no. 112 of 9 June 2026, AIC rejected the three lowest bids for “insufficient technical or professional capacity” and named the German firm amd.sigma as winner.
The first ANSC decision (July 2026) upheld Urban Scope’s complaint in full. AIC had rejected that bid, among other reasons, because it did not analyse Moldova’s “political situation” and did not list all the roads and car parks on the scale models. ANSC replied that a bid must describe how the firm will work, not already contain the master plan. By requiring more than the terms of reference, AIC had introduced “additional requirements at the evaluation stage”, which is not allowed.
AIC upheld its decision on re-evaluation. Urban Scope filed a second complaint.
The second ANSC decision (24 September 2026) again annulled the award. Key documents in the amd.sigma bid had been submitted in English only, without a certified translation, although the tender documents required Romanian or a translation. The bid was found irrevocably non-compliant, and any contract signed on its basis would be absolutely null (Article 24(4) of Law no. 20/2026).
Urban Scope does not automatically become the winner. AIC has 30 days, i.e. until around the end of October 2026, to re-evaluate the bids. If it rejects that bid again, its reasons must rest strictly on the terms of reference.

The summary of the ANSC decisions is based on excerpts published by Ziarul de Gardă; the full text of the decisions has not been consulted.

AIC’s evaluation was inconsistent. AIC excluded, for “technical capacity”, the consortium with the richest master-plan portfolio (Sigma Engineering–Ineco), while accepting a bid that failed a mandatory language requirement. The procedure bought a 20-year strategic document on a “cheapest wins” basis and then tried to correct that criterion through rejections the rules did not provide for.

2. Mărculești is included in the plan, Bălți-Leadoveni is not

Mărculești is explicitly named in the terms of reference (points 1.2, 3.18, 4.2 and 7.5). Asked by a bidder whether master plans were required for both airports, AIC replied on 11 March 2026: “Yes”. The Urban Scope bid provides for an analysis of the situation at Mărculești and a separate scale model of that airport.
The roles were set administratively. By Government decision of 5 June 2025, AIC became “general investor” at Mărculești: it finances and carries out the investments and receives the assets free of charge, without merging the two enterprises, a merger announced in January 2025 and then abandoned. Chișinău gets the passengers; Mărculești gets cargo and charter.
Bălți-Leadoveni does not appear in any of the public documents consulted.
It is not known what share of the budget goes to Mărculești. Neither the tender budget nor the bids separate the cost of planning the two airports. It is unclear whether the 2025 decision also covers strategic planning for Mărculești or only immediate investments.

ANSC stated that describing Mărculești as a “cargo node” in the Urban Scope bid is a working hypothesis of the methodology, not a conclusion of the master plan. In practice, however, a joint master plan for two airports fixes their roles: which one gets the passengers, which one gets the cargo and where the investment goes. If that division is made only between Chișinău and Mărculești, the rest of the network stays outside the analysis.

3. The level above the master plan is missing: the comparative network study

Airport planning uses four levels of documents, in this order.

Level	Question it answers	Scope
1. Comparative network feasibility study (system plan)	Which airport takes which function, and where is public money concentrated?	All airports in the country
2. Master plan	How is an airport with an already defined role developed in phases?	A single airport
3. Project feasibility study	Is a specific investment (runway, terminal) worthwhile, and in which variant?	A single project
4. Detailed design	How is it built?	A single project

Each document answers only its own question. A master plan assumes the network decision has already been taken. It cannot compare sites and cannot justify the choice of airport.
A comparative feasibility study assesses sites against the same criteria: runway length and strength, room for expansion, obstacles, meteorology, geodesy, investment and operating costs, catchment area, road and rail access, noise and environmental liabilities. The result is a reasoned ranking, with a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) for each option.
The shortcut is legal but has conditions. The Government may decide politically which airport to develop (without a network study) and then commission the master plan directly. But the decision must be assumed explicitly, in a reasoned public act, and cannot later be presented as the outcome of a study that did not compare the alternatives. In this case there is no such act. The 2026 tender buys only the master plan, without the prior feasibility study.

A few criteria show why the comparison is not a formality:

Criterion	Mărculești (LUBM)	Bălți-Leadoveni (LUBL)
Elevation and terrain	about 101 m, in the Răut valley	about 231 m, on a plateau
Water	Airfield practically surrounded by the Răut; the Căinar runs along the western and southern edges; lakes to the north-east	On a plateau, above the river valleys
Meteorology	The valley position favours fog and cold-air pooling	To be compared using long-term observations
Wildlife (bird-strike) risk	High: rivers, lakes and a landfill next to the runway, as noted by the civil aviation authority (AAC) itself	To be assessed with the same method
Runway strength (PCN)	Declared only from usage experience (“U” method)	Certified by the “T” method under Soviet standards from 30 years ago
Environmental liabilities	Historical petroleum pollution of groundwater	Apparently none
Runway orientation	07/25	15/33

The two airports are about 33 km apart, so their approach procedures must be coordinated in any case. The table does not replace the measurements a study would make; it only shows what should have been compared.

Other technical criteria that must be measured with the same method at each site:

Seismicity. Earthquakes from the Vrancea zone are generally felt more strongly in the south and centre of the country (Cahul, Chișinău) than in the north (Bălți-Leadoveni, Mărculești); the seismic zone affects the cost of the terminal, the control tower and storage buildings.
Utilities and easements. Power, water, sewerage, gas, telecommunications, high-voltage lines in the approach area and the condition of networks inherited from former military airfields. The cost of connection can be decisive.
Airspace. Distance from other airports, from the border and from restricted areas limits flight procedures and capacity.
Wind rose. ICAO recommends orienting the runway so that the airport can be used at least 95% of the time without exceeding the permitted crosswind. An unfavourable orientation cannot be corrected later.

The 2010 Hochtief plan already contains such data for Chișinău: climate, geology, topography and seismicity (pages 74–76) and obstacle limitation surfaces (p. 40). For a fair comparison, the same data should be obtained, with the same method, for each site.

A technically good site can still be a poor one if passengers, cargo and staff find it hard to reach. That is why a comparative study also examines access and links with the surrounding territory:

Area	What is measured	Why it matters
Road access	Distance and travel time to major cities; connection to national roads	Travel time decides whether passengers choose this airport or one in a neighbouring country
Rail	A line nearby; potential for a station or spur	Rail can bring passengers and deliver cargo and aviation fuel
Public transport	Buses, shuttles, links to rail and bus stations	A remote airport without public transport loses passengers and staff
Catchment area	Population within 60, 90 or 120 minutes (isochrone maps), including neighbouring regions	The basis of the traffic forecast: the same market splits differently depending on the site
Logistics and economic zones	Proximity to logistics centres, industrial parks and free economic zones	Determines the potential for air cargo and related activities
Hotels and services	Hotel capacity, services for crews and passengers	Airlines basing aircraft need accommodation for crews
Workforce	Towns, housing and services for employees	A large airport employs thousands; towns that are too close limit expansion
Competition	Distance from other airports in the country and the region	Shows whether a site complements the network or splits the same market

These criteria show why choosing a site is not only an engineering question: it belongs to national land-use and transport planning, that is, to the system plan.

4. A comparative feasibility study was launched in 2020, then abandoned

Date	Event
December 2019 – January 2020	The Government announces it will hire an international company for a feasibility study of the regional airports. Prime Minister Ion Chicu says of Bălți: “It is clear that in the north of the country the main airport should be precisely there”.
February 2020	The terms of reference call for a comparative assessment of three airports: Bălți, Mărculești and Ceadâr-Lunga, with traffic forecasts, investments, financial feasibility and public-private partnership conditions.
28.02.2020	ADP Ingénierie (ADPI) submits an expression of interest.
29.02.2020	NACO–InterVISTAS submits an expression of interest.
March 2020	The pandemic halts the process. No formal decision to abandon it has been publicly identified.
11.03.2021	NACO renews its proposal (“Feasibility Study Regional Airports Moldova”).
To date	Neither firm has received a reply. No tender has been launched.

The State has already recognised the need for this study. In 2020, the Government itself considered that the role of the regional airports should be set through an independent comparison, not an administrative decision.
Top-tier consultants were available. NACO (founded in 1949, part of the Haskoning group) reports work at more than 700 airports in over 100 countries, and InterVISTAS, its partner for traffic forecasting and airport economics, more than 2,000 completed projects in over 75 countries. ADPI, the former engineering subsidiary of Aéroports de Paris, which became Artelia Airports in 2024, reports more than 700 airport projects since 2001. They are the market’s international benchmarks, and none of them took part in the 2026 tender.
The reason for stopping has gone; the study was not resumed. In 2024–2025, Mărculești was given the cargo-charter role and about €4.2 million of investment without the comparison that should have supported that choice.
Of the three airports assessed in 2020, the 2026 tender keeps only Mărculești.

5. A master plan already exists, not updated since 2010

The plan was prepared in May 2010 by Hochtief AirPort (Germany), with a 2030 horizon, under the modernisation programme financed by the EIB, the EBRD and the EU Neighbourhood Investment Facility. The EU grant explicitly covered “the preparation of an airport master plan”. The 2010 master plan was contracted by the EBRD after a competitive selection among six international consultants (including NACO) and awarded to Hochtief AirPort GmbH on 29 May 2009 for €169,598. According to the EIB, preparation of the master plan was covered by a European Union grant under the airport modernisation programme. The document has 275 pages and contains all the standard stages: inventory, forecasts, facility requirements, alternatives, phasing, financial plan, environmental assessment and public consultation.

The text of the plan can be consulted here:

Hochtief AirPort, “Chisinau Airport Master Plan”, May 2010 (public copy on Scribd).

The public copy is the consultation version (“Draft”) of May 2010. According to the same document (p. 13), the final version was to be completed later in 2010, after public comments; the existence and content of the final version should be confirmed by AIC.

The plan itself provided for its updating. The executive summary (p. 13) states: “The airport intends to update the Master Plan every 5 years”, and pages 15 and 169 set the first update for 2015. On its own timetable, there should have been three updates: 2015, 2020 and 2025. No public trace of any of them has been found.
The document is no longer available on AIC’s website. No act replacing or repealing it, and no public explanation, has been found.
The terms of reference do not mention it. They state neither the plan’s status, nor why a new plan is being commissioned instead of a review, nor whether its baseline studies are made available to bidders.

Indicator	2008 (actual)	Forecast for 2030	Actual
Passengers	850,000	3.2 million (+6.9%/year)	3.0 million in 2019; 4.14 million in 2024; 6.08 million in 2025
Air cargo	2,400 t	8,200 t	Not published in comparable form
Aircraft movements	12,000	40,000	Not published in comparable form

The 2030 forecast was exceeded five years early and by almost 90%. Actual growth was about 12% a year, nearly double the forecast.
That is exactly what the updates were for. A review in 2015 or 2020 would have corrected the forecasts and raised the terminal question before saturation. Today more than 6 million passengers pass through a building whose capacity is estimated in public sources at about 5.4 million.
A new plan is justified, but not from scratch. The horizon is almost reached, traffic has doubled since 2019 and Mărculești has been added. The legitimate question is not “why a new plan?” but “why is the existing plan not used as a basis?”. The clarifications require the consultant to carry out “all necessary investigations”, which risks paying a second time for the inventory, topography and obstacle studies already funded by the European grant.

An update would not necessarily have been much cheaper. In Riga, the “major review” of the 2012–2036 plan cost about €1 million, as much as a new plan. Its main advantage is not financial but accountability: it forces a comparison between what was forecast in 2010 and what was achieved. A new plan commissioned without reference to the old one erases that comparison.

Public examples show that an update carried out after many years, a so-called major review, costs the same order of magnitude as a new plan, because forecasts, scenarios and the investment plan are redone anyway. The real saving comes from baseline data that do not have to be paid for twice.

Airport	Nature of the work	Value	What it shows
Riga (Ineco and VentEko, 2024)	Major review of the 2012–2036 plan, plus strategic environmental assessment	About €1 million	A major review cost as much as a new plan for an airport of about 7 Mpax
Cleveland, USA (RS&H, 2019)	New plan replacing the 2012 one	$4.5 million	After 7 years and a change in traffic model, the plan was redone entirely
Tampa, USA (Ricondo, 2019)	“Master Plan Update” for a hub of about 20–25 Mpax	$3.5 million, plus $1.5 million for noise	At a large airport, even an update costs millions
Palm Springs, USA (Mead & Hunt, 2023–2025)	New plan replacing the 2015 one, overtaken by traffic	$2,709,476	The initial budget grew through two amendments
Boulder City, USA (2015)	Update for a small general aviation airport	$510,000	For small airports, an update costs hundreds of thousands of dollars

The figures come from countries with different staff costs; they show a trend, not an exact price for Chișinău.

The saving on paper would be limited. An update would probably also fall in the €0.7–1 million range.
The real saving would come from reused data: the inventory, topographic surveys, obstacle studies and site investigations already paid for by the European grant.
The biggest advantage is accountability. An update would show why the planned new terminal was not built and why extending the existing one would now be the right solution.

6. The order of decisions is reversed

A master plan should precede major investments. Here, the works were decided first.

Date	Decision
05.06.2025	AIC becomes “general investor” at Mărculești: about €4.2 million for runway rehabilitation and a modular terminal for 200–400 passengers per hour
29.10.2025	Tender to extend the Chișinău terminal by about 5,000 m² (about MDL 166 million)
15.01.2026	The terminal tender is cancelled to “adjust the technical solutions”
05.02.2026	The master plan tender is launched
March 2026	The terminal tender is relaunched, about MDL 9 million cheaper

The terminal extension precedes the plan that should say whether the right solution is an extension or a new terminal. The 2010 plan provided for development grouped in the northern part of the airport. During the concession period (2013–2020), a design for a new 37,000 m² terminal (HTAL) was selected in 2018. It is not known whether this design belongs to the State or whether it was made available to bidders.
Mărculești’s cargo role precedes any comparison. The €4.2 million of investment is committed before the plan that should justify it.
There was also a concession in between. In 2013–2020, the concessionaire Avia Invest was obliged to invest at least €244 million and organised the competition for the new 37,000 m² terminal, won in 2018 by HTAL. The concession was terminated in 2020, and the decision became final in December 2023 (Europa Liberă).

On these facts, the new master plan risks becoming the document that justifies decisions already taken, rather than the one that provides their basis.

7. The Mărculești site has unresolved liabilities

Historical petroleum pollution. The military airfield operated from 1957 to the early 1990s, and improper fuel handling caused extensive leaks. Groundwater around the villages of Mărculești and Lunga is heavily polluted. The Czech Embassy in Chișinău, which funded the clean-up, describes it as a major risk to residents’ health; the Czech Development Agency spoke in 2023 of an “unacceptable risk to residents’ health and the environment”. Drinking-water sources are affected, and the pollution threatens the Răut, a tributary of the Dniester.
The clean-up is not finished. The Czech project (Dekonta, with the Hydrogeological Expedition of Moldova) lasted about ten years, cost more than €2.6 million and extracted over 50 tonnes of petroleum products. The last stage (2022) ended with a proposal for further work. Public sources do not say how much petroleum product remains underground.
No one explicitly takes on the obligation. The tender documents consulted do not mention the pollution. As far as can be seen publicly, the June 2025 decision does not say who takes on the clean-up obligation and its cost together with the assets transferred to AIC. When the polluter no longer exists, the cost in practice remains with the State or the new site manager.
The runway’s strength is not technically documented. A runway’s strength is expressed by a code called PCN (PCR in the ICAO system applicable since November 2024). For Mărculești, a PCN determined only by the “U” method has been published, i.e. from usage experience, without surveys or structural calculation. The method assumes regular, documented traffic, which the airfield does not have. There is no public demonstration that the value meets ICAO and EASA criteria, and inspections by the aviation authority in recent years have recorded pavement defects.
The wildlife risk is high. ICAO Annex 14 (Volume I, Chapter 9) requires the elimination or prevention of sources that attract wildlife near an aerodrome. At Mărculești, birds are attracted by the Răut, the Căinar, the lakes near the town of Mărculești and a landfill next to the runway.

Without a technical PCN/PCR assessment of the runway, taxiways and aprons, the master plan cannot reliably calculate whether repairs, strengthening or reconstruction are needed. The cost difference between these options is very large. An environmental liability is estimated in money and added to the cost of the option; a site with a usable runway but polluted soil and groundwater may turn out to be the most expensive. International lenders such as the EIB or the EBRD check these liabilities before granting loans.

In a comparative study, environmental obligations appear as environmental liabilities: future debts tied to the site, added to the cost of each option. Four categories are distinguished:

known liabilities: pollution already documented and the cost of cleaning it up (remediation);
potential liabilities: pollution not yet known, discovered only during excavation; at former military bases, the risk of unexploded ordnance and hazardous materials is added;
compliance costs: water treatment, protection of water sources, noise insulation, monitoring;
legal liability: who takes on the obligations together with the land and assets.

Each liability is estimated in money and enters the option’s cost-benefit analysis. Any new works at Mărculești (excavation, drainage, extension of the runway or aprons, fuel storage) may mobilise the existing pollution, and the EIA must address the problem from the outset.

8. Bidders’ experience: portfolio figures do not count master plans

No bidder comes close to the experience of the two consultants who expressed interest in 2020: NACO–InterVISTAS and ADPI/Artelia Airports each have hundreds of projects and work at hundreds of airports worldwide. But even these figures do not count master plans, and portfolios are read differently:

“We have worked at X airports” counts any service provided, from a noise study to a car park. NACO reports more than 700 airports in over 100 countries.
“We have completed Y projects” counts the same airport several times. ADPI, now Artelia Airports, reports more than 700 airport projects since 2001, and InterVISTAS more than 2,000 projects in over 75 countries; neither means as many distinct airports.
“We have prepared Z master plans” is the only relevant figure, rarely published and reconstructable only reference by reference.

Bidder and partners	Price, MDL excl. VAT	≈ €	Verified master plans	AIC decision
Urban Scope (Romania) + Concrete & Design Solutions; supporting third party Setec (France)	13,700,000	680,600	Via Setec: Bordeaux–Mérignac, 10 Brazilian airports, 3 in Colombia	Rejected
Intexnauca (Moldova), with Dohwa and “KAC” documents (South Korea)	14,070,105	699,000	Via partners: Saemangeum; Mactan-Cebu, Philippines national plan	Rejected
Sigma Engineering + Ineco (Spain)	16,615,626.30	825,400	Aena network, 12 GAP airports (Mexico), Cape Verde, Jamaica, Riga, Casablanca	Rejected
amd.sigma (Germany) + Ensphere, SC Gorgona	18,169,037	902,600	Düsseldorf, Malta, Dubrovnik, Belo Horizonte	Winner, then non-compliant (ANSC)
Solis Energo (Moldova) + Aduro, WE Project Engineering	18,800,000	933,900	Via partners: Galați–Brăila	Rejected in April

Bidders must be judged together with their partners. The lead firms Urban Scope and Intexnauca have no airport master plans identified in public sources; the experience comes from Setec and from the Korean partners respectively.
The richest verifiable portfolio belongs to Ineco, followed by amd.sigma and Setec. Yet it was precisely the Sigma Engineering–Ineco consortium that was excluded for “insufficient technical capacity”, for unpublished reasons.
The threshold was modest: 3 similar projects in the last 5 years. The decisive question is not who has the larger portfolio, but whether each bid proves this minimum with compliant documents and whether the partners who bring the experience are genuinely bound by the contract.
The identity of “KAC” is not confirmed. It is probably Korea Airports Corporation, but the name in the file alone proves neither identity, role nor availability of experts.

A partner’s experience counts only if it is written into the contract. In the case of Urban Scope, without effective involvement of the 7 named Setec experts, the quality of the plan is at risk.

9. Prices are reasonable; the risk lies in what is delivered

All five bids, between €0.68 and €0.93 million, are at or slightly below the European market level.

Benchmark	Value	Comparability
Lithuania: Vilnius, Kaunas, Palanga (NACO, 2022)	€824,000 for 3 airports (about €275,000 per airport)	Very good: same region, airports of similar size
Riga (Ineco and VentEko, 2024)	About €1 million	Good: airport of about 7 Mpax
Galați–Brăila (2022)	About €6.4 million	Low, but includes all site investigations
CPK, Poland (Arup, 2021)	About €6.5 million	Low: new airport of 40–65 Mpax

The lowest bid is not suspiciously low. For two airports, with physical scale models and site investigations, all the prices are plausible.
amd.sigma cost MDL 4,469,037 more than Urban Scope and MDL 1,553,410.70 (9.35%) more than the consortium with the richest portfolio.
The Urban Scope cost breakdown, the only one fully accessible, shows a structure that needs justifying.Scale models and presentations total €182,400, or 27% of the total. The share does not automatically prove overpricing, since presentations may include travel and preparation of materials.
Site investigations have no line of their own, although the terms of reference assign them to the consultant. Expert reports and “research acts” account for only €24,650 (3.6%). At Galați–Brăila, investigations accounted for about 40% of the contract. The risk is that they will be done superficially or paid for later through amendments.

Urban Scope actually bid in euros (€675,390); on the price form the total is wrongly labelled “MDL”. Neither a low price nor the consultant’s reputation guarantees, by itself, the quality of the plan.

10. The environmental framework: alternatives cannot be bypassed

	Strategic environmental assessment (SEA)	Environmental impact assessment (EIA)
Law	Law no. 11/2017 (Directive 2001/42/EC)	Law no. 86/2014 (Directive 2011/92/EU)
Subject	A plan: the master plan	A project: runway, terminal, extension
Timing	Before the plan is approved	Before the project is authorised
Alternatives	Reasonable alternatives must be identified and evaluated, stating the likely evolution of the environment without implementation of the document (Article 8(1) and Annex 2(b) of Law no. 11/2017)	The alternatives studied by the developer are described

The master plan’s SEA must examine “reasonable alternatives”. The master plan is subject to a mandatory SEA: Law no. 11/2017 requires it for policy and planning documents in the transport sector that set the framework for the activities listed in Annexes 1 and 2 of Law no. 86/2014 (Article 3(1)(a)). The SEA report must identify, describe and evaluate reasonable alternatives (Article 8(1)) and give the reasons for selecting the alternatives examined (Annex 2(h)). If the other airports have never been compared, this stage has no basis. The contract requires the consultant to provide only the analytical documentation for the SEA; the procedures and public consultations remain with AIC.
Airports with a runway of at least 2,100 m are listed in Annex 1 of Law no. 86/2014, among the activities subject to mandatory environmental impact assessment, without a case-by-case decision (point 7(a) in the original text; the numbering must be checked in the version amended by Law no. 226/2022).
AIC’s clarifications refer to a “state expert review”. The state ecological expert review no longer exists as a separate procedure: Law no. 226/2022, in force since 21.10.2023, repealed Law no. 851/1996, and its role was taken over by the EIA. It remains to be clarified whether AIC means the technical expert review of design documentation under the Urban Planning and Construction Code (Law no. 434/2023), or a procedure that no longer exists.
Works authorised before the master plan and its SEA escape the comparison of alternatives, the only moment at which one can say that a site is less harmful.

The correct order of procedures:

Step 1. The system or network plan (where and how many airports), with an SEA if adopted as a policy document.
Step 2. The airport master plan, with an SEA before approval.
Step 3. The feasibility study for each investment, during which the EIA begins (screening and scoping).
Step 4. Detailed design, environmental consent and only then the building permit.

Other environmental obligations. SEA and EIA are assessment procedures. Beyond them, an airport must comply with the environmental rules of each sector, which become obligations and costs during operation:

Water (Water Law no. 272/2011): protection zones for rivers and water sources; permits for water use and wastewater discharge; treatment of stormwater from the runway and apron, loaded with petroleum products and de-icing fluid.
Air: Law no. 98/2022 on ambient air quality and the rules on emissions from fuel depots (Government Decision no. 587/2020).
Industrial emissions (Law no. 227/2022), for installations within its scope.
Waste (Law no. 209/2016): waste from aircraft, maintenance and the terminal.
Safety of hazardous installations (Law no. 151/2022), especially large aviation fuel depots.
Noise: assessed mandatorily in the EIA, it determines the zones where housing construction must be restricted. On the path to EU accession, Moldova is due to adopt the EU rules on noise around airports (Directive 2002/49/EC and Regulation (EU) No 598/2014).
Historical soil and groundwater pollution: under the “polluter pays” principle, clean-up falls to the party responsible. When the polluter no longer exists, who pays must be set explicitly; otherwise the cost in practice remains with the State or the new site manager.

11. Gaps in the tender documentation

Issue	Finding
Tender title	Names only AIC, although the contract also covers Mărculești
The 2010 master plan	No reference in the notice, the clarifications or the ANSC decisions
Site investigations	Required by the terms of reference, with no line of their own in the Urban Scope cost breakdown
Pollution at Mărculești	Not mentioned in the tender documents consulted
PCN at Mărculești	Unclear whether a technical pavement assessment is included in the contract
Cost of planning Mărculești	Not separated from the cost of the Chișinău plan
“State expert review”	Reference to a repealed or unclearly defined environmental procedure
Traffic data	Actual cargo and movements for 2008–2025 not published in a form comparable with the 2010 forecasts
MTender portal	Not updated after the ANSC decisions

Risks

What could happen	Likelihood	Consequence
A new complaint or court case	High	Delay: the 12-month plan would start at the end of 2026 at the earliest
Cancellation and relaunch of the tender	Medium	8–10 months lost, but a switch to the best price-quality criterion would be possible
Experienced partner involved only on paper	Medium	A poorly grounded plan, with fragile forecasts and scenarios
Amendments for site investigations	Medium	Final cost rises above MDL 13.7 million
Historical pollution at Mărculești not addressed in the master plan	High, unless explicitly required	Unforeseen costs and delays; risk to drinking-water sources and residents’ health
Investments at Mărculești calculated without a pavement assessment or a wildlife-risk evaluation	High, unless explicitly required	Underestimated costs, additional works, operating restrictions discovered only after the investment

12. Relevance for the Mărculești and Bălți-Leadoveni files

The master plan cannot prove that Mărculești is superior. By its nature, it develops an airport whose role is already set. Any conclusion that Mărculești is preferable to Bălți-Leadoveni for serving the north would require a separate, up-to-date multi-criteria comparison.
The absence of a reasoned act is verifiable. If the choice of Mărculești is political, the Government must assume it as such, with the alternatives rejected. If it is technical, there must be a study that compared the alternatives. Neither exists.
The 2020 precedent is useful in itself. The State then recognised that the role of the northern airports is set through independent comparison, and explicitly included Bălți in the terms of reference.
The plan’s SEA is the next checkpoint. The mandatory public consultation is the moment to ask for the Bălți-Leadoveni alternative to be examined. The public has at least 30 working days for comments and proposals (Article 10(6) of Law no. 11/2017). The consultation summary must show how they were taken into account and give reasons for the choices “in the light of the reasonable alternatives proposed for examination” (Article 10(8)). The environmental opinion is binding on the developer when the plan is approved, while public comments are recommendations (Article 8⁴(3) and Article 14(1)).

Questions arising from the analysis

The answers depend on documents held by the authorities.

On the procurement procedure

What are the specific reasons for excluding the bids of Sigma Engineering–Ineco, Intexnauca and Solis Energo, given that the first has the richest master-plan portfolio?
What does the full text of the two ANSC decisions contain, beyond the excerpts published in the press?
Will the re-evaluation confirm that the Urban Scope bid is compliant? If so, will the Setec experts be named in the contract, replaceable only by equivalent specialists?

On the 2010 master plan

How many times has the 2010 master plan, which provided for updates in 2015, 2020 and 2025, been updated? If never, why not?
Was it formally approved, and is it still in force? Why is it no longer publicly available?
Which phases of the plan were carried out, and why were the forecasts not revised when traffic exceeded them?
Were the 2010 plan and the 37,000 m² terminal design from the concession period made available to bidders? Does that design belong to the State, and can it be used?
How did cargo traffic and aircraft movements actually evolve between 2008 and 2025, compared with the 2010 forecasts?
Why is the existing terminal being extended before the new master plan determines whether the right solution is an extension or a new terminal?
Why do the terms of reference not mention the 2010 plan or require an assessment of what was achieved under it?

On Mărculești and the airport network

What share of the MDL 20 million budget goes to planning Mărculești, and on what basis does AIC fund it under the Government decision of 5 June 2025?
Why was the 2020 comparative study (Bălți, Mărculești, Ceadâr-Lunga) not resumed after the pandemic, and why did the expressions of interest from ADPI and NACO–InterVISTAS go unanswered?
Can the role of Mărculești be set without a comparative feasibility study of all the country’s airports?
Will the master plan’s strategic environmental assessment consider alternative sites, including Bălți-Leadoveni?
If the role of Mărculești was chosen politically, where is the reasoned act by which the Government assumes that choice and the alternatives rejected?
Who takes on, together with the Mărculești assets, the obligation and cost of cleaning up the historical pollution? What is the status of the remediation work, and how much petroleum product remains underground?
Will the master plan and the environmental assessments include a soil and groundwater study and a plan to protect local drinking-water sources?
How will the master plan calculate investments in the runway, taxiways and aprons at Mărculești without a technical PCN/PCR assessment? Is such an assessment required and budgeted in the contract?

This analysis is technical and factual, not a legal opinion. The assessments of the ANSC decisions are based on excerpts published in the press. The exchange rate used is MDL 20.13/€.

Glossary

Terms used in the article, in alphabetical order.

Term	Meaning
Absolute nullity	The contract is treated as legally non-existent, as if it had never been concluded
Airport Layout Plan (ALP)	In the United States, the site plan of an airport’s facilities, approved by the FAA; part of the master plan
Airside	The controlled-access part of the airport where aircraft move
ANSC	National Agency for Solving Complaints; hears complaints against decisions in public procurement
Apron	The area where aircraft stand for boarding, refuelling and loading
Bottleneck	The component with the lowest capacity, which limits the whole airport
Capacity	How much activity a component or the whole airport can handle; measured in passengers per year, movements per hour or aircraft stands
Cargo	Air transport of goods
Cargo node	An airport specialising in freight
Compliance	A bid’s meeting all mandatory requirements; a non-compliant bid is excluded however low its price
Consortium (joint bid)	A group of firms bidding together and jointly liable; it has a lead firm and one or more partners
Cost-benefit analysis (CBA)	The calculation showing whether the economic and social benefits of a public investment exceed its costs; mandatory for EU funding
CPV	The European code classifying what is bought in a public procurement
Detailed design	The detailed drawings used for construction; comes after the master plan
Environmental consent	The act issued at the end of the EIA, without which a project subject to assessment cannot be authorised
Environmental impact assessment (EIA)	The environmental analysis of a specific project, such as a new runway (Law no. 86/2014)
Environmental liability	A future obligation tied to a site, such as cleaning up old pollution; estimated in money and added to the cost of the option
Environmental opinion	The act issued at the end of the SEA; binding on the developer when the plan is approved
ESPD (DUAE)	European Single Procurement Document; each participant’s standard self-declaration
FAA	Federal Aviation Administration, the US civil aviation authority
Feasibility study (FS)	The analysis of a specific investment project (technical options, cost, CBA); in its comparative form, it compares several sites for the same function
Firm commitment	The document by which a supporting third party undertakes to place its resources at the bidder’s disposal
General investor	The role given to AIC at Mărculești in June 2025: it finances and carries out the investments and receives the assets, without merging the two enterprises
Hub	An airport that concentrates traffic from several directions and redistributes it
ICAO	International Civil Aviation Organization (a UN agency); issues the standards and manuals for airport planning
Landside	The city-facing side: roads, car parks, public transport
Major review	An in-depth update of an existing master plan that redoes the forecasts and scenarios but keeps the baseline data
Man-month	One person’s work for one month; the unit consultants use to price their services
Master plan	The strategic plan that sets what is built at an airport, where, when and at roughly what cost, over 20–30 years
Movement	One landing or one take-off
Mpax	Millions of passengers per year
MRO	Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul: aircraft maintenance and repair, usually in dedicated hangars
MTender	Moldova’s state electronic platform for public procurement
Multi-criteria analysis	Comparing several options by scoring them on different criteria (cost, operations, environment), with weights set in advance
Obstacle limitation surfaces	Imaginary surfaces around the runway where structures that are too tall are not allowed, for flight safety
Passenger terminal	The building where passengers check in, pass security and border control
PCN / PCR	The code expressing the strength of a runway or apron (PCR in the ICAO system applicable since November 2024); determined by the “T” method (technical evaluation) or the “U” method (usage experience)
Peak hour	The busiest hour; terminals and aprons are sized for it
Runway	The strip on which aircraft land and take off
Scale model 1:5000	A physical model of the airport; 1 real metre becomes 0.2 mm
SCG (Schéma de Composition Générale)	The French name for an airport master plan
State ecological expert review	A former procedure (Law no. 851/1996), repealed from 21.10.2023; its role was taken over by the EIA
Strategic environmental assessment (SEA)	The environmental analysis of a plan as a whole, with its alternatives (Law no. 11/2017)
Supporting third party	A firm outside the bid that provides the bidder with experience, staff or financial resources
System plan (comparative network study)	The document that compares all the airports of a country and sets the role of each; it comes before master plans
Taxiway	The route along which aircraft move between the runway and the apron
Traffic forecast	The estimate of passengers, cargo and movements in coming years; the foundation of the master plan
Urban planning certificate	An act issued by the town hall stating what may be built on a plot and under what conditions

Main sources

Critical analysis of the tender for the CIA (and MIA) Master Plan