Turkey eyes world’s largest airport at Istanbul

By year’s end, the new facility will be able to handle up to 90m passengers annually

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday unveiled Istanbul’s new international airport, which his government claims will be the world’s largest.

One of the president’s favoured mega-projects, Erdogan says the €10.5 billion ($12 billion) project will make Istanbul a global travel hub linking Europe, Asia and Africa and turn flag carrier Turkish Airlines into an aviation giant.

By year’s end, the new airport will be able to handle up to 90 million passengers annually, ranking it in the world’s top five. This will rise to 200 million passengers when all facilities are completed in 2028, by which time it could well be number one.

In 2017, that title was held by Atlanta airport in the US, with just under 104 million passengers, according to Airport Council International (ACI) figures. Next came Beijing on 95.7 million passengers, Dubai 88.2 million, Tokyo 85.4 million and Los Angeles 84.5 million.

In Europe, London-Heathrow ranked seventh globally with 78 million passengers last year. Paris-Charles de Gaulle came in 10th on 69.4 million, Amsterdam 11th with 68.5 million, Frankfurt 14th at 64.5 million and then Istanbul in 15th position with 64.1 million.

The ACI said Turkish air traffic grew 10.9 per cent last year, picking up pace in the first half of 2018 to 15.7 per cent.

Construction, facilities

The airport is being built in the Arnavutkoy district on the European side of Istanbul.

It is the first completely new “greenfield” facility in Europe in nearly 20 years, the ACI says.

When all four construction phases are complete in 2028, the airport will have six runways and two terminal buildings, covering an area of 76 square kilometres, according to operator IGA.