Turkey’s airports served nearly 30 million passengers in 3 months

ISTANBUL

Some 29.6 million passengers went through Turkey’s airports in the first three months of 2022, pointing to a strong 67.4 percent increase from a year ago, data from the General Directorate of State Airports Authority (DHMİ) has shown.

In a sign that tourism activity is picking up, airports served 13.6 million international passengers, marking a robust rise of more than 126 percent compared to January-March 2021.

The domestic passenger tally grew nearly 37 percent on a yearly basis to some 16 million people in the first quarter, according to the DHMİ data.

Istanbul Airport saw a strong 106 percent increase in overall passenger traffic in the said period to 11.4 million, with international passenger traffic rising 107 percent to 8.5 million people. Turkey’s mega airport also served 2.9 million domestic travelers, up 102 percent from a year ago.

Sabiha Gökçen, another major airport in Istanbul, reported a 162 percent increase in international passengers to 3.1 million.

International passenger traffic at Adnan Menderes Airport in İzmir and Dalaman Airport in Muğla, the two holiday hotspots in the country, leaped by 331 percent and 590 percent in the first three months of the year on an annual basis, respectively.

Nearly 930,000 international travelers went through the airport in Antalya, another popular destination for foreign holidaymakers on the Mediterranean coast, rising more than 100 percent.

The data also showed that commercial aircraft traffic at the country’s airports also increased by 47 percent in the first quarter of the year from the same period of 2021.

In March alone, the number of international passengers rose by more than 109 percent from a year ago to 5.2 million.

Speaking at the launch of the Transport and Logistics Master Plan, Transport and Infrastructure Minister Adil Karaismailoğlu last week said that the number of airports in Turkey would increase from the current 56 to 61 by 2053.