Istanbul Europe’s busiest airport in March

ISTANBUL

Türkiye’s mega airport Istanbul was the busiest one in Europe, with an average of 1,263 daily flights in March, according to EUROCONTROL.

Sabiha Gökçen, also in Istanbul, ranked 17th on the list with an average of 549 daily flights.

Istanbul Airport was followed by Heathrow with 1,190 flights and Charles de Gaulle in Paris with 1,135 flights.

Amsterdam’s Schiphol and Frankfurt came fourth and fifth, respectively.

In terms of air traffic, Türkiye was the sixth busiest country in Europe last month, with an average of 2,324 daily flights, up 30.2 percent from March 2021.

On average, the U.K. and Germany had 4,634 and 3,895 flights per day, respectively, followed by Spain (3,889) and France (3,378).

“Ryanair was the busiest operator with 2,321 movements per day on average, followed by Turkish Airlines (1,300), easyJet (1,262) and Lufthansa (975),” EUROCONTROL said.

Traffic in Europe last month was 13.9 percent higher than traffic in March 2022, according to EUROCONTROL.

There were 745,600 flights throughout Europe, and the network saw 24,052 flights per day on average in March.

“With the beginning of the summer schedules on March 26, three market segments have expanded capacities in the network: Mainline, Regional and Low-Cost,” it said.

Meanwhile, Turkish Airlines flew its one billionth passenger on April 24.

Mustafa Balcı, the carrier’s one billionth passenger, was traveling from Istanbul Airport to the southeastern province of Adıyaman. Turkish Airlines gave the passenger 1 million bonus miles.

The flag carrier also said it held a record 1,653 flights and 278,299 passengers on April 23.

Turkish Airlines carried more than 6 million passengers in March, up 27.5 percent from a year ago. The international passenger tally rose 37.3 percent annually to 4 million, while domestic passenger traffic grew 12.3 percent to 2.1 million.

In the first quarter of this year, Turkish Airlines’ total number of passengers increased by nearly 35 percent year-on-year to 17.05 million.

Earlier this month, the carrier said it aims to boost its consolidated revenue by over $50 billion by 2033 and expand its fleet to 435 aircraft in 2023 and over 800 by 2033.

It also aims to serve 170 million passengers by 2033, compared to more than 85 million in 2023.