Istanbul’s third airport firm signs 250-mln euro service deals

ISTANBUL

Istanbul Grand Airport (İGA), the operator of Istanbul’s under-construction third airport, stated on July 11 that it had inked cargo and service deals with six companies worth a total of 250 million euros. 

According to a statement by the firm, İGA had clinched deals with MNG, PTT, Çelebi Hava Servisi, HAVAŞ, Sistem Lojistik and Bilin Lojistik for services at the new airport, Reuters has reported.

Under the deal, which will be effective for 25 years, the companies will construct buildings at the new airport’s “cargo city and ground services campus,” carrying out activities over a 200,000-square meter space.

“We signed service and cargo deals worth 250 million euros with six big companies from Turkey. We completed our duty-free deal last year. We are now in the process of a deal in catering spaces. We will go out to tender for advertising service spaces in the coming months. We have rented 50 percent of spaces that are available for rent as of now. Deals have been made with almost 100 companies so far,” IGA Chair Hüseyin Keskin stated.

Keskin also said the new airport will have a cargo capacity of 2.5 million tons when it is opened and that figure will rise to 5.5 million tons once all phases of the facility are completed.

The airport will also have a total space for ground services of 150,000 square meters and space of 1.4 million square meters for cargo services, including freighter parking positions and the whole cargo city, the İGA statement said.

İGA Airports will operate the facility for 25 years, paying 1.05 billion euros in annual rent, before handing it over to the state. 

The new under-construction airport in Istanbul is planned to have two runways and one terminal. It is expected to reach a capacity of 150 million passengers after the completion of two more runways and additional facilities.

Once the first section opens next year, around 2,000 airplanes will be able to land and take off daily. The first section will also have a passenger capacity of 90 million and a terminal building that covers an area of 1.3 million square meters.

Currently, almost 30,000 people are working on the site, where 8,000 construction machines are operating.

The new airport will also facilitate flight to a total of 350 destinations in the world.