Ghost planes at Atatürk Airport to be scrapped

ISTANBUL – Demirören News Agency

The General Directorate of Civil Aviation has prepared a draft guide on handling 17 abandoned planes at the Atatürk Airport, which was closed to commercial passenger flights on April 5.

Some of those airplanes have been occupying the parking apron at the airport for a long time because they are either unclaimed, put under order of attachment or gone out of use, the draft document said.

The legal owners of the planes will be notified of occurred tax liabilities and landing and parking fees, according to the draft guide. They will be obliged to remove the plane from the airport after completing the payments but will be given extra time of up to 60 days if they apply to the directorate with reasonable justifications.

Unless the 17 planes are reclaimed from the airport before the deadline, they will be put up for auction along with other equipment. When a plane is sold, the net total amount – sale price excluding the fees, taxes and other liabilities – will be kept in an escrow account for five years. If the owner of the plane makes an application in the meantime, the net amount will be paid out; otherwise the money will be transferred to the revenue account of the General Directorate of Civil Aviation.

The directorate will decide how to use the money received from the sales of the abandoned planes after getting approval from the Finance Ministry.

The abandoned planes parked at Apron Y of the Atatürk Airport include the first Antonov An-12 registered in the Turkish aviation inventory. The plane was bought by the courier company CAT Kargo in 1994 but has been derelict since it was used for a short time.

A Cessna 340A plane used by the UPS was discarded when the company halted its domestic air operations within Turkey.

There are also big passenger planes, such as Airbus A300s, among the abandoned aircrafts at the Atatürk Airport.

The airport, which served as Istanbul’s main airport for 86 years, was replaced by the newly built Istanbul Airport in the north of the metropolis on April 6. Its two runways and hangars continue serving VIP flights and cargo planes.