Contractor says Istanbul's 3rd airport to be green, fears protest

Aysel ALP ANKARA - Hürriyet

Nihat Özdemir, chairman of Limak Group, says the third airport may be built emulating a Singapore airport.

Around 2.5 million trees will be cut or moved to a new place during the construction of the planned third airport in Istanbul, the Turkish Ministry of Transport estimated. “We are now researching which airports are the most environmental-friendly, to be inspired. Otherwise the environmentalists in Gezi Park could visit the third airport to demonstrate,” Nihat Özdemir, spokesperson of the consortium that won the tender for a third airport project in Istanbul, and chairman of Turkish Limak Group, announced yesterday, as daily Hürriyet reported.

“We may take the airport in Singapore as an example as it is very green,” noted Nihat Özdemir, adding that they did not want to cut down even one of the trees there.

The new airport is planned to be constructed on Istanbul’s European side between the Black Sea regions of Yeniköy and Akpınar, on an area of 7,659 hectares. Some 6,172 hectares of this area is forest land.

The Cengiz-Kolin-Limak-Mapa-Kalyon Consortium, a joint venture of Turkish companies, has won the tender for a third airport project in Istanbul, promising to pay the government 22.1 billion euros for 25 years starting from 2017.

Indian company ‘not to exit’ from 2nd airport

The Bangalore-based GMR Infra group does not plan to exit from the Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen Airport, contrary to some speculative stories that appeared in a number of media institutions in India and Turkey, the company told the Hürriyet Daily News in a statement yesterday.

“It is our global corporate strategy not to answer such speculations, but some news stories [in India] claiming that ‘GMR plans to sell its share in the Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen are definitely not true,” the company said to the Daily News, adding that the company was completely committed to its responsibilities in the partnership.

Some India-based media institutions claimed that GMR had planned to exit from the Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen airport this year due to its financial losses from the airport.

A joint venture, which was established by Turkish Limak Holding, GMR Infrastructure Limited (GMR), and Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad (MAHB), gained operation rights for 20 years, as of May 1st of 2008, for Istanbul’s Sabiha Gökçen International Airport, including the management of the terminal buildings, car park, ground handling, cargo and aircraft refueling operations, the airport hotel and CIP facilities.