‘Ghost’ planes at Turkish airports to be sold for scrap

Eray Görgülü – ANKARA

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (SHGM) has released a new regulation in regards to abandoned planes that are occupying parking aprons at Turkish airports.

According to the regulation, airplanes that are not moved from the airports for six months due to being either unclaimed or out of use will be sold for scrap.

There are currently 29 airplanes in such situation waiting idly at Turkish airports. Twenty-one of these planes belong to Turkish companies, while the rest are foreign-owned.

According to the new regulation published on the Official Gazette on July 24, airport enterprises will notify the SHGM about the abandoned airplanes. The SHGM will then convey the relevant information to the dysfunctional planes’ firms if it is a Turkish firm and order them to remove the relevant plane in 30 days. If the plane is not registered in Turkey, then the SHGM will notify the country that the plane is registered in and order them to remove the plane in 60 days.

But, if the plane is not removed despite this process within the set deadline, then it will be put up for auction.

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 SHGM.

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

Fatih Sayan, deputy minister of transportation and infrastructure, said: “We have asked the relevant firms to remove these planes [from the airports]. They did not remove them. So we have prepared a regulation. There are many idle planes waiting at Atatürk Airport and Sabiha Gökçen Airport,” Sayan said.

Most of the abandoned airplanes are located at Atatürk Airport, which was closed to commercial passenger flight on April 5. 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.