Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has opened the new Istanbul airport. The first phase consists of the main terminal building of 1.4 million m2, two runways, an Air Traffic Control Tower and supporting buildings.
Istanbul Airport, for which almost 200,000 workers exerted efforts since the groundbreaking ceremony, is planned to offer employment to 225,000 people directly and indirectly in 2025. The Istanbul Airport Economic Impact Report prepared in 2016 suggests that the economic value created of airport related activities in 2025 will correspond to 4.89% of the GNP.
Turkish Airlines will fly back and forth to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Azerbaijan‘s Baku and Ankara, Antalya and İzmir every day, holding the code ISL until December 31.
The first flight following the inauguration took place at 11:10 on Wednesday, October 31 to Ankara with a special airplane. The "big bang" aeronautical service transition from Istanbul Ataturk Airport to Istanbul Airport will commence on December 30 and end on December 31.
Istanbul Airport has the capacity to serve 90 million people and 200 million passengers per year once all phases are completed.
Work is underway to offer transportation to the new Istanbul Airport, built up on a strong technological infrastructure. Currently it takes 30 minutes to reach the new airport from Levent via D-20 highway (Göktürk- Kemerburgaz direction).
Istanbul Airport, bringing in robots, artificial intelligence, face recognition and similar features to reach personal information, has been equipped with cutting-edge technological systems such as smart system, beacon, wireless internet, wireless and new generation GSM infrastructure, LTE, sensor and talking “objects”.
3,500 security personnel and 9,000 state-of-the-art cameras will provide the security within the airport. Moreover, security will be managed via the artificial tower within the terminal.
Waiting time at the baggage carousel will be shortened in Istanbul Airport. With the 42 kilometers long baggage system holding the capacity to process 10,800 pieces of baggage, the baggage gathered from 13 check-in islands will reach the planes and passenger without any further due. EBS (Early Baggage Storage System) will be operating to store the early arriving baggage, thereby making Istanbul Airport use the latest baggage store technology when compared against the other international airports.