The transfer of all commercial flights from Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport to the city’s new airport was completed at midnight on April 6, the CFTS portal reports, citing information from Ukraine’s Consulate General in the city.
The mass transfer of international passenger flights began at 03:00 on April 5, and the Ataturk airport stopped handling commercial flights at 02:00 on April 6. The Ataturk airport will now handle only cargo and business flights.
As for flights from Ukraine, the new Istanbul airport has begun or will soon begin handling Turkish Airlines’ flights from Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, Kherson, Zaporizhia, and Kharkiv; the flights of Atlasjet Ukraine, UIA, and Onur Air from Odesa; UIA’s flights from Kyiv.
The airports also swapped IATA codes. The new airport has been assigned the IST code while the Ataturk airport has been assigned the ISL code.
The opening ceremony of the new Istanbul airport took place on October 29 last year with the participation of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The airport cost EUR 10.2 billion. It is one of the largest airports in the world. It has the world's largest passenger terminal with 1.4 million square meters of space.
The airport currently has two runways (the number is expected to increase to six) and 371 parking spaces for aircraft.
According to the airport authority, its initial passenger traffic will be 90 million per year, and it is expected to increase to 200 million people.
The Istanbul airport is located on the Black Sea coast, 35 kilometers from the city.
The Ataturk airport was opened in 1912. It had a passenger traffic of 68 million as of 2018. It was one of the five largest airports in Europe.
