On April 6, 2019 one of the words busiest airports closed for good. Istanbul’s Atatürk Airport formerly served upwards of 70 million passengers a year (for reference, Sea-Tac saw 49.8 million in 2018) making it the 10th busiest on the planet. But with Turkish Airlines’ growing dominance in the Middle East, even these large capabilities were pushed to their limits.
The solution was a $12 Billion mega project started in 2015. Called the Istanbul New Airport, it’s expected to support over 200 million passengers annually by 2027. That would make it the world’s largest airport. By a long shot. The title is currently held by Georgia’s Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport which packs a mere 107 million annually.
As of now, however, Istanbul Airport can only handle 90 million. The airport is opening in stages so it could be operational for Turkey’s 95th anniversary as a republic. With the first stage fully completed, the airport has two runways, a hospital, hotel, and nearly 600,000 square feet of duty-free shops. It’s also plagued with problems.
The airport is only one in a series of mega projects Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has begun to improve the country’s infrastructure. He’s also started work on a 50-mile canal set to be complete in 2023, and in 2016 celebrated the opening of a new bridge across the Bosphorus Strait, now one of the world’s tallest and widest.
These projects come at a time of economic crisis in the nation, with Turkey’s currency, the Lira, now worth less than a sixth of the US dollar. Erdoğan claims these projects, airport included, will help boost Turkey’s economy out of its spiral dive. Unfortunately, many fear the worst. With over $17.6 Billion in loans shelled out on the airport alone, questions remain of how they will be paid back.
The airport has also had serious environmental impacts. Built in the northern Bosphorus forest outside Istanbul, construction has caused the removal of 2.5 million trees. Those trees provided oxygen for about 215,000 people – oxygen Istanbul greatly needs.
To make up for this, some have suggested turning Istanbul’s former airport, Atatürk, into a large nature-reserve. However, with many cargo flights still using Atatürk’s runways and the poor state of Turkey’s economy, this is unlikely to happen.
