New Istanbul Airport

The first flight from the new Istanbul Airport took off on Wednesday 31st of October carrying 340 passengers to Ankara. The Turkish Airlines (THY) flight TK2124’s Boeing 777 wide-body aircraft flew to Esenboğa International Airport.

The Transport and Infrastructure Minister Cahit Turan and a number of journalists fly among the passengers. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan inaugurated the new aviation hub on 29th of October, the 95th anniversary of the Turkish Republic.

About Project

The third in the city, Istanbul Airport will replace Atatürk International Airport also as the main flight hub. The project, built by a consortium of five contractors – Limak, Kolin, Cengiz, Mapa and Kalyon. Uses a build-operate-transfer (BOT) model that will provide over 26 billion euros ($30.65 billion) of revenue to the government.

Spread over an area of over 76 million square meters, the first phase of the Istanbul Airport will serve 90 million passengers. The total cost of the first phase is about 6 billion euros. Over 250 Turkish and foreign architects and more than 500 engineers participating in the construction.

With the remaining phases to be completed by 2023, the airport hosts six separate runways with an annual capacity of 200 million passengers. By the end of the year 2,000 planes expected to transit through the airport every day to over 350 destinations by over 250 carriers.

According to Daily Sabah