VIDEO Overnight success: Istanbul’s new airport is fully open for passenger operations

Istanbul’s new airport has completed the transfer of all passenger airline operations from the Turkish city’s former hub at Atatürk Airport in a process that took just 33 hours.

In what Turkish airport management company iGA described as “the biggest logistical operation in the world aviation history” the transfer took place between April 5-6 2019.

For Turkish Airlines alone around 1,800 personnel transferred approximately 47,300 tons of equipment. Turkish Cargo’s freighter operations are expected to transfer from Ataturk later this year.

Said an iGA spokesperson: “The whole moving operation went smoothly and exactly as planned. In the afternoon of April 6, all airlines and their passenger systems become fully operational in the new mega hub.”

Kadri Samsunlu, chief executive and chairman of the executive board at iGA, said: “This exercise was simply unprecedented: No move between two globally-important hub airports has ever been attempted on anything like this scale before.

“Yet we achieved it without disruption, especially to the hundreds of thousands of travellers who continued to transit seamlessly between Asia, Africa and Europe over Istanbul Airport, while benefitting from the most advanced passenger experience technologies combined with superb shopping and eating.

“The smooth move to our new home, follows a record five-year fast-build, and firmly sets Istanbul Airport on the path to growth as one of the world’s most significant air transport centres.”

Once fully completed, including four phases with six runways, Istanbul Airport,is set to serve 200m passengers annually. At full capacity, Istanbul Airport will become a global aviation hub with flights to over 300 destinations around the world.