President Tayyip Erdogan opened a new $11.7 billion airport outside Istanbul that will be one of the world's busiest, though delays mean it will not be fully operational until January. The name of the new airport will be Istanbul Airport. The Atatürk Airport, named after Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, will be shut for commercial carriers. The airport's interiors pay homage to Turkish and Islamic designs and its tulip-shaped air traffic control tower won the 2016 International Architecture Award.
As The Economic Times writes in an article "Turkey unveils world's largest airport in Istanbul", it also uses mobile applications and artificial intelligence for customers, is energy efficient and boasts a high-tech security system.
Istanbul new Airport, on the shores of the Black Sea, will be able to handle 90 million passengers a year, and can be expanded to accommodate as many as 200 million. For the first two months, however, it will be used for just a few flights within Turkey and to Azerbaijan and northern Cyprus.
At the initial phase, five takeoffs and five landings will take place at the airport. It is expected that a daily 2,000 planes will go through the airport by the end of the year to over 350 destinations by over 250 carriers.
When the construction of all the phases is complete, the airport will have six runways. The open and closed parking lot of the airport will be able to serve 70,000 automobiles.
Istanbul's new airport will be home to the world's largest duty-free shopping complex.
This airport is going to be the most important hub between Asia and Europe. A new airport in Istanbul was necessary due to growing congestion at Ataturk Airport, one of the busiest in Europe, where there was no space for new runways.
