Turkey’s İstanbul Airport has welcomed over 40 million air passengers since its opening last year, the transport and infrastructure minister said on Monday, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency.
A total of 252,795 flights — 63,856 domestic and 188,939 international — have taken off and landed at the airport, said Cahit Turhan.
He added that construction of a third parallel runway spread across 76.5 million square meters on the Black Sea coast of Yeniköy and Akpınar on the European side of İstanbul would soon be completed.
The İstanbul Airport, whose first phase officially opened in October 2018, took over air traffic from the former İstanbul Atatürk Airport on April 6.
The airport is projected to serve 200 million passengers annually at full capacity after the completion of all four phases with six runways by 2028.
It is set to become a global aviation hub hosting more than 100 airlines and flights to over 300 destinations around the world, the report said.
The airport’s construction drew serious criticism from Turkish opposition parties, which claimed corruption in tenders, and sparked protests among laborers who complained about harsh working conditions and a surge in work-related deaths.
Source: Turkish Minute
