New Istanbul Airport to become fully operational on March 3, 2019

The new airport from Istanbul is said to be opened for all passenger flights operated by Turkish Airlines starting March 3, 2019. The new proposed date might become business as usual for all airliners operating in Istanbul.

The new date was confirmed on Monday by a spokesperson of the IGA airport consortium that are operating the new airport.

The transfer of flights will start on March 1 and should be completed on March 3, when all new flights should operate from the new airport.

Starting March 2, the codesign IST will be transferred to the new Istanbul Airport.

Right from the beginning, the new airport should have a handling capacity of up to 80 flights (takeoffs and landings), wich means a maximum of up to 2000 flights per day. Compared to the old airport, that is a capacity increase of around 30%.

Currently, Ataturk airport had a capacity of about 60 million passengers, making it the fifth most transited airport in Europe. The new airport will have a capacity of up to 90 million passengers, while upon completion of all construction phases to have a capacity of up to 200 million passengers.

The construction of the airport began in 2015 on a field where before was a coal mine, 35 kilometers north-west to the city of Istanbul.

Officially, the airport was opened on 29 October 2018, with the occasion of the 95th Republic Anniversary. However, full operations were delayed until the end of 2018, just to come after that another delay. Previous reports stated the possible opening of the airport in March.

Things started to sort out in mid-January when Turkish Airlines announced a bunch of new flights to be operated from the new airport until the end of February.

Cargo operations will continue to be operated from Ataturk airport.

The new Airport will offer a number of 114 gates, almost triple than the existing 41 gates at Ataturk Airport.

Sabiha Gökçen Airport, located in the Asian part of the city (the new airport its north-west of Istanbul) will remain open and operational even after the full move-in to the new airport and closure of old Ataturk.