Istanbul, Turkey

Once more layover at İstanbul Havalimanı, the new main international airport serving Istanbul. This time we had more time to have a look at it. It is located in the Arnavutköy district on the European side of the city. It was opened in 2019 and once all phases are completed in 2025, the airport will be able to accommodate 200 million passengers a year which would have made it the biggest in the world at the time of planning. The airport currently has one terminal in service for domestic and international flights and four runways that are currently in operation. Once fully completed, the airport will have six sets of runways (eight in total), 16 taxiways, and four terminal buildings. There were huge protests against the construction, several hundert workers died during the construction and according to the Environmental Impact Assessment report published in April 2013, there were a total of 2.513.341 trees in the area and 657.950 of them would need to be cut indispensably, while 1.855.391 trees would be moved to new places. Make up your own mind...Read more