About Istanbul
Istanbul Airport is the main international airport serving Istanbul, Turkey. It is located in the Arnavutköy district on the European side of the city. Opened in 2018 to replace Atatürk Airport, it aims to become the largest airport in the world by passenger capacity upon full completion. It is the global hub for Turkish Airlines.
The terminal building is notable for its massive vaulted ceilings inspired by Ottoman architecture, particularly the mosques of Istanbul. The tulip-shaped air traffic control tower is an iconic design element. The airport manages a huge volume of connecting traffic between Europe, Asia, and Africa due to Istanbul's strategic geographic location.
Currently operating with five runways, the master plan includes six runways and multiple terminals to handle up to 200 million passengers annually. The airport features a vast duty-free area and modern technology like biometric gates. It represents Turkey's ambition to be a global aviation superpower.
Istanbul Airport is operated under a build-operate-transfer concession by the İGA consortium—a joint venture of five Turkish construction firms: Cengiz, Kolin, Limak, Mapa and Kalyon—whose 25-year contract signed in 2013 requires them to pay the Turkish state 22.15 billion euros over the concession's lifetime plus a share of net operating revenue exceeding predetermined thresholds. The full property will revert to Turkish state ownership at 07:00 local time on 3 October 2043. Construction employed 35,000 workers at peak, and the site's official groundbreaking on 7 June 2014 was attended by then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose personal endorsement made the airport a signature project of his AK Party government. Its ICAO code LTFM replaced the old Atatürk Airport's LTBA on the night of 6 April 2019 in a single 45-hour cutover that involved moving 47,300 tonnes of equipment across 40 kilometres of city.