World’s largest airport is set to open soon

The third airport of Istanbul, the largest city of Turkey with a population of 18 million, is set top open soon, on October 29th, 2018. The moving from the current primary Atatürk Airport to the new airport has started this week.

The current Atatürk Airport is home to 70 Million Passengers a year, which is still considered one of the largest airports in the world, and it is the first time in history that an airport of this size will move. The new airport is at a distance of 45 km from the current one, still on the European side of Istanbul.The move is such a big one that outside consultancy was needed form  other countries, which had organized large scale airport moves before. The move, which will be performed by 600 large size trucks, will start on October 30, 03:00 AM and will continue for about 18 hours.  In the last 24 hours of the current Ataturk airport, the flights will be reduced to 50%. After the completion of move, the flights at the new airport will start at 10% capacity, which then will be increased gradually. 120 planes will fly without passengers from the current, to new one.

Source: igairport.com

There were some opposition to the location of the airport, as the airplanes must now use a small portion of airspace from Bulgaria, which Turkey will pay for. Regardless of that, Istanbul and Turkey is geographically at a very central location to Europe, Middle East, North Africa and central Asia, which can be reached in their entirety in less than 5 hours and can be considered as an intersection point for all. This makes it possible to fly to much more countries form Istanbul, for a given amount of time, in comparison to airports located in other countries.

Here are some numbers for the new airport:

  • 28000 personnel will be trained to work at the airport.
  • The first phase only will be at 90 million passengers a year capacity
  • 250 airlines will use the airport
  • The capacity will later be increased up to 200 million passengers a year
  • The airport will have a total footprint of 76.5 km2
  • There will be 6 independent tracks for takeoffs and landings
  • The airport is at a distance of 37 km to Istanbul’s Taksim Square, which is considered the center point of the city
  • The airport, which is near the coast, will also be one of the few in the world, which will have the capability of obtaining the fuel for planes from the sea, which will be brought by ships. This way, unit costs are reduced as much as 40%, better safety is achieved, a large number of trucks (estimated to be around 2250) which would need to use highways and would cause traffic in the city and airport, will be totally eliminated and in addition, the capacity of fuel will be twice of the total fuel capacity of all airports in Turkey. The total fuel capacity will be around 6 million cubicmeters. Daily fuel consumption by the planes is estimated to be 13200 cubicmeters.
  • From the airport, there will be flights to over 350 destinations
  • There will be 40000 square meters of duty free retail space at departures and 14000 square meters of retail space at arrival floors. This will mean the world’s largest duty free retail shop. The total retail space will have a size of 100,000 square meters.
  • In the year 2025, it is estimated that the airport create jobs to around 225,000 people, and it will generate 4.9% of Turkish Republic’s entire GDP
  • The airport parking will have a capacity of 18,000 cars
  • There will be 468 check-in counters, arranged in 13 groups of rows, in addition to 114 self check-in counters, 51 bag drops
  • Inside the airport there will be a 446 room hotel
  • Restaurant area will have a total size of 32000 meter square
  • Passports will be controlled at 228 passport control booths, plus the e-passport control location
  • There will be a series of test flights, which will involve 9000 people as fake passengers and 10 airplanes which will involve 102 different scenarios
  • 143 passenger bridges will serve as a connector between planes and boarding areas

 

 

 

 

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