Turkey to build world\'s biggest airport in Istanbul

Jasim Uddin Haroon, back from Istanbul | Published: September 17, 2016 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Turkey is building the world's biggest airport in Istanbul with having a capacity of 150 million passengers a year mainly to cope with its thriving air traffic.
The national flag carrier of Turkey is eyeing to grab a major chunk of the rising number of passengers. It wants expansion of the number of destinations and further modernising its services. Â
However, the new airport, the third one in Istanbul is expected to be partially opened sometime in 2018. This will include the world's largest airport terminal under one roof. According to the designs this will serve as a gateway to the country with rail, metro and bus links.Â Â
But the new airport will fully be operationalised by 2028.
People familiar with the development say this new airport will connect Istanbul with rest of the world making it one of the biggest hubs in the globe.
"We believe that this new airport will connect rest of the world," said M Ilker Ayci, chairman of the Board and the Executive Committee of the Turkish Airlines at its headquarters in Istanbul.
He was speaking at a gathering of journalists from 18 countries including Bangladesh in Istanbul recently.
The chairman said the air traffic is growing in the Istanbul Ataturk Airport despite terror attack in the airport coupled with a failed coup attempt in mid of July last.
As a result of growing air passengers meant for Istanbul and transits, Turkish Airlines now expects to carry 64 million passengers in 2016.
Turkish Airlines fly to the highest number of destinations in the world which helped expand its networks globally.
"We're now the 4th biggest airline network in the world," he said.
He expects Istanbul will surpass Frankfurt, Paris and Heathrow airports soon as far as air businesses are concerned.
Mr Ayci said the Istanbul is safe and tourists can move freely.
However the new airport to be located on the Black Sea coast on the European side of Turkey,Â will be 22 miles away from Istanbul.
Istanbul's third airport will be the largest duty-free zone in the world.
The existing Ataturk Airport, Istanbul's main airport, located on the European side of Istanbul, is surrounded by urban Istanbul and is incapable of cost effective expansion to meet increasing demand. Additionally, there is an increasing problem of air traffic congestion.
The Airport itself became the third busiest airport in Europe in 2015, edging out Frankfurt Airport.
There is no space to build an additional runway on the airport site, as the airport is within the city of Istanbul. Industrial areas are situated north of the airport, with residential areas to the west and east of it.
In 2014, the two Istanbul airports handled more than 80 million passengers.
Currently Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport known locally as Atlanta Airport, Hartsfield, or Hartsfield-Jackson, is the busiest international airport in Atlanta, in the U.S. state of Georgia. It has been the world's busiest airport by passenger traffic since 1998.
It accommodated 100 million passengers (more than 260,000 passengers daily) in 2012.
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