The Dhaka Times Desk The world's largest airport has started its journey in Istanbul, Turkey. President Tayyip Erdogan inaugurated the airport a few days ago.
The airport was inaugurated on the occasion of the 95th anniversary of the Republic of Turkey. 50 high-level guests from 18 countries including the President of Turkish Cyprus, the Emir of Qatar and the Foreign Minister of Iran attended the opening ceremony.
The airport was built by a consortium of big 5 companies – Limac, Kolin, Cengiz, Mapa and Calon.
Instead of Kemal Atatürk Airport, it is now considered the main hub of Istanbul. The airport was built at a cost of 2,600 million euros with Turkey's own funding. With an area of 7.6 million square meters, the airport is currently expected to handle 90 million passengers a year. 6 billion Euro has been spent to complete the work of this part in the first phase.
About 10 thousand people worked on this project. A total of 250 architects and more than 500 engineers from Turkey and abroad were involved in this construction.
In this regard, the Minister of Transport and Infrastructure of Turkey Sehit Turhan said that two runways and one terminal will be opened for the time being. With which 9 crore passengers can travel annually. Along with this, a main air traffic control tower, a cargo house will also be commissioned. Of the two runways, one is 4.1 km long and the other is 3.75 km long. Currently, 347 aircraft can be accommodated in this section. It will take about 48 hours to divert the main flights from Kemal Ataturk to this airport.
By 2023, the airport will be fully operational. Then 6 separate runways will be added to it. 500 aircraft will be able to stay at this airport simultaneously. At least 20 million passengers will use this airport annually. At the same time, it will become the largest tax-free shopping complex in the world, with an area of about 53 thousand square meters!
By the end of this year, the airport is expected to handle 2,000 daily flights to 350 destinations.
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