Istanbul ISGIA sees increased passenger traffic with new boarding hall

KUALA LUMPUR: The whollyowned subsidiary of Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd, Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport (ISGIA) experienced increased capacity to 41 million passengers per annum (mppa) from 33 million passengers per annum with the recent opening of its new domestic boarding hall.

In a statement, Malaysia Airports said ISGIA, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of Malaysia Airports since 2015 and is also the second largest airport in Turkey.

The new boarding hall, constructed at EURO 26 million, was the first link in the chain of investment projects in ISGIA’s tenth year of operations.

The new 26,000 square metre boarding hall features four new aerobridges, 1,000 square metres of shopping area, as well as, comfortable waiting lounges and prayer rooms.

ISGIA Chief Executive Officer Ersel Goral, was quoted as saying in the statement that the airport had taken major steps in meeting the evolving needs of Turkey’s rapidly growing tourism industry.

“For seven consecutive years from 2009 to 2016, we were recognised as Europe’s fastestgrowing airport in terms of number of passengers.

“We expect to register 33.0 million passenger traffic movements this year, which will represent a nine-fold growth over the last ten years.

“For the first half of 2018, we are already registering double-digit growth of 12 per cent compared with the same period last year, increasing to 16.2 million passenger traffic movements,” Goral said of the new terminal building which was fully operational since July 31, 2018.

From January to June 2018, International passenger traffic movement increased 13 per cent to 5.2 million and domestic passenger traffic movement rose 12 per cent to 11.0 million.

ISGIA is also looking forward to the opening of its second runway which is currently being constructed by the Turkish government and is expected to become operational by end-2019.

The second runway will allow the airport to handle up to 80 f light movements per hour, doubling its present capacity.

Future developments to the airport will also ultimately increase the airport system’s capacity to beyond 60 mppa by 2021, the statement said.

As a destination preferred by the likes of Emirates, Qatar Airways, Fly Dubai, Air Arabia, and also a hub for both Turkish Airlines and Pegasus to fly to more and more destinations, the airport keeps expanding its scope in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

On top of this, the new subway line linking the airport to the Pendik-Kadikoy subway line is expected to be completed at the beginning of next year.