Antalya Airport’s capacity to be expanded

ANTALYA

The airport in the province of Antalya, on the Mediterranean coast, will be expanded to serve more passengers, while Russian tour operators plan to use the airport for connecting flights to third countries in winter.

Antalya with a total bed capacity of 650,000 is one of the largest tourist destinations in the entire Mediterranean region. It’s competitor Majorca has only 450,000 beds.

The city’s airport recently saw a sharp increase in the volume of passenger traffic as nations eased the COVID-19-related restriction, giving a boost to tourism activity.

While many airports in other countries are suffering from staff shortages, Turkish airports emerged from the crisis in the aviation sector, triggered by the pandemic, well prepared for the rebound in passenger traffic.

Operators of the Antalya airport, Fraport-TAV, are now working to expand the capacity.

Local and international carriers, such as Turkish Airlines, Pegasus, SunExpress, Corendon, Freefird as well as low-cost airlines Ryanair and EasyJet are having flights from and to the airport, which has two runways.

The airport is serving more than 185,000 passengers per day.

Fraport-TAV plans to increase the airport’s capacity to serve 80 million passengers with a total investment of 750 million euros. The first phase of the expansion work is expected to be completed by January 2025. The area of the international terminal will be increased from 142,000 square meters to 267,000 square meters.

A new airplane parking area for 181 jets is being built with a new fuel farm with underground pipelines. A new tower and additional international terminal will be built in 2030 and 2040, respectively.

Fraport-TAV will operate the airport until 2052.

Winter traffic

“Flights from Russia reached 60 percent of the 2019 traffic and the European markets are recovering fast. In the German market, flights exceeded the 2019 levels,” said Deniz Varol, general manager of the airport.

The number of passengers from the U.K., Poland, and Kazakhstan rose by 55 percent, 35 percent and 70 percent compared with 2019, he added.

The company is also working to increase passenger traffic during winter, cooperating with carriers with different programs.

“Thanks to those efforts, traffic in winter months increased from 710,000 before the pandemic to 1.25 million,” he added.

Meanwhile, Russian tour operators are planning to use the Antalya airport for connecting flights to destinations in the Caribbean and Far East.

Direct flights from Russia to those destinations are tiring, said an official from the association of Russian tour operators.

“The best route from Russia to those destination is via Antalya with a stopover in the city. Arriving passengers will rest in Antalya before departing for their final destinations,” the official said.

A two-week holiday in the Far East will cost a family of two around 368,000 rubles if they use Antalya as the transfer point, he added.

From Aug. 1 to Aug. 17, more than 524,000 Russians arrived at the airport, down from 910,000 passengers a year ago.