Istanbul Airport serves over 40 mln passengers
ISTANBUL
Istanbul Airport welcomed over 40 million air passengers since its opening last year, Turkey’s transport and infrastructure minister said on Oct. 28.
A total of 252,795 flights (63,856 domestic and 188,939 international) have taken off and landed at the airport, said Cahit Turhan.
He added that the construction of the third parallel runway spread across 76.5 million square meters on the Black Sea coast of Yeniköy and Akpınar districts on the European side of Istanbul will be completed shortly.
Istanbul Airport, whose first phase officially opened in October 2018, took over air traffic from the former main Atatürk Airport on April 6.
The airport is projected to serve 200 million passengers annually with a full capacity after the completion of all four phases with six runways by 2028.
It is set to become a global aviation hub hosting more than 100 airlines and flights to over 300 destinations around the world.
On a related note, Sabiha Gökçen Airport, located on the Asian side of the city, has served a total of 240 million passengers since it was launched 10 years ago, on Oct. 31, 2009.
According to officials from the operator İSG, the airport currently runs a terminal with 41million passenger capacity.
On its first year of operation, the airport handled 11.6 million travelers with the number of passengers using the facility rising steadily on each subsequent year.
The capacity of the terminal was initially 33 million when the airport became operational in 2009.
A 26 million euro was spent to build an additional terminal building which expanded the capacity of the airport to 41 million passengers in 2018.
In 2018, the passenger traffic of Sabiha Gökçen hit a little more than 38 million.
The latest data from the airport authority DHMİ showed that between January and September this year, a total of 26.7 million people used the airport, pointing to a 3 percent increase compared with the same period of 2018.
The airport is expected to host some 36 million passengers this year.