Atatürk International Airport

Atatürk International Airport Atatürk Uluslararası Havalimanı
IATA: IST – ICAO: LTBA
Summary
Airport type		Public
Owner		General Directorate of State Airports
Operator		TAV Airports Holding
Serves		Istanbul, Turkey
Location		Yeşilköy
Hub for		Atlasjet Onur Air Turkish Airlines
Elevation AMSL		163 ft / 50 m
Coordinates		40°58′34″N 028°48′51″E
Website		www.ataturkairport.com
Map
IST Location within Istanbul
Runways
Direction	Length		Surface
	m	ft
17L/35R	3,000	9,843	Concrete
17R/35L	3,000	9,843	Concrete
05/23	2,600	7,546	Grooved Asphalt
Statistics (2011)
Total passengers			37,452,187
International Passengers			23,847,835
Sources: Turkish AIP at EUROCONTROL

Atatürk International Airport (IATA: IST, ICAO: LTBA) (Turkish: Atatürk Uluslararası Havalimanı) is the major international airport in Istanbul, Turkey. Opened in 1924 and located in Yeşilköy, on the European side of the city, it is 24 km (15 mi) west of the city centre. In 1980, the airport was renamed to Atatürk International Airport in honor of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder and the first president of the Republic of Turkey. With total passenger traffic of 37 million for the year 2011, it is among the top 40 airports in the world in terms of total passenger traffic and the 12th busiest in the world in terms of international passenger traffic. It was Europe's 8th busiest airport in 2011.

Runways

There is a plan to build another runway parallel to runway 05/23, so when the original runway undergoes repairs, this runway will be able to handle aircraft movements without any interruption to service. But in order to work on this project, the land required to build the new runway on belongs to the military, and this is being negotiated between the military and the airport authorities. Also, there are plans to expand the length of runway 05/23, this will allow the runway to be able to handle larger aircraft, as most airlines which serve Istanbul have already begun to use larger aircraft.[2].

Terminals, airlines and destinations

Atatürk airport has four terminals:

• Terminal 1, for domestic flights
• Terminal 2, for international flights
• Terminal 3, for cargo flights
• General Aviation Terminal

Inaugurated in 2000, the new international terminal is an efficient and modern terminal. After the new terminal opened, domestic flights were moved to the old international terminal. Despite its 1960s design, this new domestic terminal can handle more passengers than the more modern but smaller previous domestic terminal.

The airport terminals have been operated by TAV (Tepe-Akfen-Ventures) since January 2000. TAV has invested US$600 million since 1998. In 2005 TAV won the concession agreement to operate Atatürk for 15.5 years at a record breaking amount of $4 billion, which also represents the highest figure for such a privatization project in Turkey, Eastern Europe, Middle East, Commonwealth of Independent States and North Africa.

Turkish Airlines aircraft parked at Terminal B.

TAV (Tepe-Akfen-Ventures) started its construction at the airport for new boarding gates at international terminal as well as building a new air traffic control tower. Unused facility buildings are demolished and 3 new boarding bridges are being built. When the new tower is completed, the old one will be demolished. When the international terminal is expanded, some of the jet ways will be left to the domestics terminal which are on the west of the international terminal, connected to it.

Passenger

Airlines	Destinations	Terminal
Adria Airways	Ljubljana	2
Aegean Airlines	Athens	2
Aeroflot	Moscow-Sheremetyevo	2
Aeroflot operated by Donavia	Rostov-on-Don	2
Aerosvit Airlines	Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kyiv-Boryspil, Simferopol	2
Afriqiyah Airways	Tripoli	2
Air Algérie	Algiers	2
Air Astana	Almaty, Astana, Atyrau	2
Air France	Marseille, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Toulouse [begins 3 April 2012]	2
Air Malta	Malta	2
Air Moldova	Chişinău	2
Air Transat	Seasonal: Montréal-Trudeau, Toronto-Pearson	2
airBaltic	Riga	2
Alitalia	Rome-Fiumicino	2
Ariana Afghan Airlines	Kabul	2
Armavia	Yerevan	2
Asiana Airlines	Seoul-Incheon	2
Atlasjet	Antalya, Bodrum, Dalaman, Izmir	1
Atlasjet	Arbil, Basra, Ercan, Hurghada, Jeddah, Pristina, Rome-Fiumicino, Sharm el-Sheikh, Tehran-Imam Khomeini Seasonal: Barcelona, Dubrovnik, Madrid, Mykonos, Najaf, Sulaimaniyah	2
Austrian Airlines	Vienna	2
Azerbaijan Airlines	Baku	2
Azmar Airlines	Sulaimaniyah	2
Belavia	Minsk	2
B&H Airlines	Sarajevo	2
British Airways	London-Heathrow	2
Buraq Air	Benghazi, Tripoli	2
Caspian Airlines	Tehran-Imam Khomeini	2
China Southern Airlines	Urumqi	2
Condor Flugdienst	Seasonal: Frankfurt	2
Corendon Airlines	Amsterdam, Tehran-Imam Khomeini	2
Croatia Airlines	Zagreb	2
Delta Air Lines	New York-JFK	2
Donbassaero	Donetsk	2
Dniproavia	Dnipropetrovsk	2
EgyptAir	Cairo	2
Emirates	Dubai	2
Etihad Airways	Abu Dhabi	2
Freebird Airlines	Seasonal: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Belgrade, Berlin-Tegel, Brussels, Budapest, Cologne/Bonn, Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Lyon, Madrid, Málaga, Marseille, Milan-Malpensa, Munich, Nantes, Oslo-Gardermoen, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Prague, Seville, Stockholm-Arlanda, Stuttgart, Toulouse, Vienna, Zürich	2
Gulf Air	Bahrain	2
Iberia	Madrid	2
Iran Air	Tabriz, Tehran-Imam Khomeini	2
Iraqi Airways	Arbil, Baghdad, Basrah	2
JAT Airways	Belgrade	2
Jetairfly	Brussels, Brussels South-Charleroi	2
KLM	Amsterdam	2
Korean Air	Seoul-Incheon	2
Kuban Airlines	Krasnodar	2
Kuwait Airways	Kuwait	2
Kyrgyzstan	Bishkek	2
Libyan Airlines	Benghazi, Tripoli	2
LOT Polish Airlines	Warsaw	2
Lufthansa	Berlin-Brandenburg [begins 4 June 2012], Frankfurt, Munich	2
Mahan Air	Isfahan, Tehran-Imam Khomeini	2
Malaysia Airlines	Kuala Lumpur	2
Middle East Airlines	Beirut	2
Olympic Air	Athens	2
Onur Air	Adana, Ankara, Antalya, Bodrum, Dalaman, Diyarbakır, Erzurum, Gaziantep, İzmir, Malatya, Samsun, Trabzon	1
Onur Air	Barcelona, Dubai, Ercan, Milan-Malpensa, Palma de Mallorca, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Sharjah	2
Pegasus Airlines	Ankara, Bodrum	1
Pegasus Airlines operated by IZair	İzmir	1
Qatar Airways	Doha	2
Red Wings Airlines	Moscow-Vnukovo	2
Rossiya	St Petersburg	2
Royal Air Maroc	Casablanca	2
Royal Jordanian	Amman-Queen Alia	2
Saudi Arabian Airlines	Jeddah, Madinah, Riyadh	2
SCAT	Aktau	2
Singapore Airlines	Athens, Singapore	2
Somon Air	Dushanbe	2
Swiss International Airlines	Zürich	2
Tajik Air	Dushanbe	2
TAROM	Bucharest-Henri Coandă	2
Tatarstan Airlines	Kazan	2
Tunis Air	Monastir, Tunis	2
Turkish Airlines	Adana, Adıyaman, Ağrı, Ankara, Antalya, Batman, Bodrum, Çanakkale, Dalaman, Denizli, Diyarbakir, Elazığ, Erzincan, Erzurum, Eskişehir, Gaziantep, Hatay, Isparta, İzmir, Kahramanmaraş, Kars, Kayseri, Konya, Malatya, Mardin, Merzifon, Muş, Nevşehir, Samsun, Şanlıurfa, Sinop, Sivas, Trabzon, Uşak, Van	1
Turkish Airlines	A Coruña [begins 28 May 2012], Abu Dhabi, Accra, Addis Ababa, Aleppo, Alexandria-Borg el Arab, Algiers, Almaty, Amman-Queen Alia, Amsterdam, Arbil, Ashgabat, Astana, Athens, Baghdad, Bahrain, Baku, Bangkok-Suvarnabhumi, Barcelona, Basrah, Basel/Mulhouse, Batumi, Beijing-Capital, Beirut, Belgrade, Benghazi, Berlin-Tegel [ends 2 June 2012], Berlin-Brandenburg [begins 3 June 2012], Bilbao [begins 28 May 2012], Birmingham, Bishkek, Bologna, Bremen [begins 26 April 2012], Brussels, Bucharest-Henri Coandă, Budapest, Cairo, Cape Town, Casablanca, Chicago-O'Hare, Chişinău, Cologne/Bonn, Copenhagen, Dakar, Damascus, Dammam, Dar es Salaam, Delhi, Dhaka, Dnipropetovsk, Doha, Donetsk, Dubai, Dublin, Dushanbe, Düsseldorf, Entebbe, Ercan, Frankfurt, Geneva, Genoa, Gothenburg-Landvetter, Guangzhou, Hamburg, Hanover, Helsinki, Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong, Islamabad, Jakarta-Soekarno-Hatta, Jeddah, Johannesburg, Kabul, Karachi, Kazan, Kharkiv [begins 13 March 2012], Khartoum, Kiev-Boryspil, Kuwait, Lagos, Leipzig-Halle [begins 28 May 2012], Lisbon, London-Gatwick, London-Heathrow, Los Angeles, Lviv, Lyon, Ljubljana, Madinah, Madrid, Málaga, Manchester, Mashad, Milan-Malpensa, Minsk, Misurata, Mogadishu [begins 05 March 2012], Moscow-Sheremetyevo [ends 24 March 2012], Moscow-Vnukovo [begins 25 March 2012], Mumbai, Munich, Muscat, Nairobi, Najaf, Naples, New York-JFK, Nice, Novosibirsk [begins 14 March 2012], Nuremberg, Odesa, Osaka-Kansai, Oslo-Gardermoen, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Podgorica, Prague, Pristina, Riga, Riyadh, Rome-Fiumicino, Rostov-on-Don, St Petersburg, Sana'a, São Paulo-Guarulhos, Sarajevo, Seoul-Incheon, Shanghai-Pudong, Simferopol, Singapore, Skopje, Sochi, Sofia, Stockholm-Arlanda, Stuttgart, Sulaymaniyah, Tabriz, Tashkent, Tbilisi, Tehran-Imam Khomeini, Tel Aviv-ben Gurion, Thessaloniki, Tirana, Tokyo-Narita, Toronto-Pearson, Toulouse, Tripoli, Tunis, Turin, Ufa, Valencia, Venice-Marco Polo, Vienna, Warsaw-Chopin, Washington-Dulles, Yekaterinburg, Zagreb, Zürich	2
Turkmenistan Airlines	Ashgabat	2
United Airlines	Newark [begins 2 July 2012]	2
Uzbekistan Airlines	Tashkent	2

Cargo airlines

Airlines	Destinations
ACT Airlines	Bahrain, Hong Kong, New York-JFK, Lahore, Singapore, Tallinn
Air France	Paris-Charles de Gaulle
DHL Aviation operated by MNG Airlines	Leipzig/Halle
FedEx Express	Paris-Charles de Gaulle
Korean Air Cargo	Seoul-Incheon
Lufthansa Cargo	Frankfurt
MNG Airlines	Hahn, London-Luton, Milan-Malpensa, Tallinn
Saudi Arabian Airlines Cargo	Dammam, Riyadh
Silk Way Airlines	Baku
TNT Airways	Liege
Turkish Airlines Cargo	Addis Ababa, Algiers, Almaty, Amman, Beirut, Bishkek, Budapest, Cairo, Casablanca, Cologne/Bonn, Damascus, Delhi, Dubai, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Jeddah, Lagos, London-Gatwick, Maastricht/Aachen, Madrid, Milan-Malpensa, Moscow-Sheremetyevo, Mumbai, Nairobi, New York-JFK, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Riyadh, Shanghai-Pudong, Sharjah, Stockholm-Arlanda, Tbilisi, Tel Aviv, Tirana, Zürich
ULS Airlines Cargo	Beijing-Capital, Hong Kong, Manila, Manston, Shanghai-Pudong
UPS Airlines	Cologne/Bonn, Newark, Shenzhen
Uzbekistan Airways Cargo	Tashkent

Traffic and statistics

Busiest International Routes from Atatürk Int. Airport (2011) Rank City Airlines 1 Frankfurt, Germany Condor Flugdienst, Lufthansa, Turkish Airlines 2 Amsterdam, Netherlands Corendon Airlines, KLM, Turkish Airlines 3 London-Heathrow, United Kingdom British Airways, Turkish Airlines 4 Rome-Fiumicino Alitalia, Atlasjet, Turkish Airlines 5 New York-JFK Delta Air Lines, Turkish Airlines 6 Dubai Emirates, Onur Air, Turkish Airlines 7 Madrid-Barajas Freebird, Iberia, Turkish Airlines 8 Paris-Charles de Gaulle Air France, Onur Air, Turkish Airlines 9 Munich Lufthansa, Turkish Airlines 10 Seoul-Incheon Asiana Airlines, Korean Airlines, Turkish Airlines 11 Vienna Austrian Airlines, Turkish Airlines 12 Milan-Malpensa Onur Air, Turkish Airlines 13 Berlin-Tegel Turkish Airlines 14 Zurich Swiss International Airlines, Turkish Airlines 15 Düsseldorf Lufthansa, Turkish Airlines 16 Chicago-O'Hare Turkish Airlines 17 Singapore Singapore Airlines, Turkish Airlines 18 Athens Aegean Airlines, Olympic Airlines, Turkish Airlines 19 Toronto-Pearson Air Transat, Turkish Airlines 20 Beijing-Capital Turkish Airlines

Busiest Domestic Routes from İstanbul Atatürk Int. Airport (2011)

Rank	Airport	Passengers
1	Ankara	Onur Air, Pegasus Airlines, Turkish Airlines
2	İzmir	Atlasjet, Izair, Onur Air, Turkish Airlines
3	Antalya	Atlasjet, Onur Air, Sky Airlines Turkish Airlines
4	Adana	Onur Air, Turkish Airlines
5	Diyarbakır	Onur Air, Turkish Airlines
6	Erzurum	Onur Air, Turkish Airlines
7	Trabzon	Onur Air, Turkish Airlines
8	Bodrum	Atlasjet, Onur Air, Pegasus Airlines, Turkish Airlines
9	Samsun	Onur Air, Turkish Airlines
10	Kayseri	Turkish Airlines

Other facilities

Turkish Airlines headquarters

Turkish Airlines has its headquarters in the Turkish Airlines General Management Building, located on the airport property.

Traffic

Atatürk Airport still faces capacity issues; it ranks somewhere between 30th and 40th in the world by both cargo and passenger traffic, handling over 947,000 tonnes of load (cargo, freight and mail) and over 32.1 million passengers in the year 2010. The total number of passengers has doubled in the past five years, and domestic traffic has almost quadrupled (see statistics section below). Its rated capacity of 14 million international passengers per year and 10 million domestic passengers per year was barely sufficient for the demand in 2007 and 2008. The Istanbul greater metropolitan area is expected/projected to have a demand of 35 million international passengers and 25 million domestic passengers annually by the year 2015.^{[citation needed]} However, introduction of high speed trains between Ankara and Istanbul in 2012, and completion of the construction of the intercity highways linking Istanbul to other cities (to Bursa, İzmir, Antalya and the Black Sea Speedway) may help decrease this demand.^{[citation needed]}

A view from the interior of the international terminal.

Atatürk shares traffic with Sabiha Gökçen International Airport, which is on the Anatolian (Asian) side of Istanbul, which had annual passenger traffic of just 11.1 million in 2010. The two airports both provide domestic and international service to the Istanbul area.

A third big airport is being planned in Silivri suburb 40 km west of Istanbul, in order to meet Istanbul's growing domestic and international air traffic demand as a source, destination and transit point.

IST ranked 19th in ACI statistics at the end of 2010 in terms of international traffic with over 20 Million international passengers. If the current passenger growth maintains itself, IST is expected to become one of the 30 busiest airports in the world in terms of total passenger traffic and top 15 in terms of international traffic by the end of year 2012.

Below is the passenger data for Istanbul for the years 2002–2011:

Statistics

The 'total' column below exclude the number of transit passengers. [3][4]

İstanbul Atatürk International Airport Passenger Traffic Statistics

Year (months)	Domestic	% change	Inter- national	% change	World Rank (Intnl)	Total	% change	World Rank (Total)
2011 (all)*	13,604,352	15.0%	23,847,835	17.0%	12th	37,452,187	17.0%	28th
2010 (all)	11,800,999	3.0%	20,344,620	11.0%	19th	32,145,619	8.0%	37th
2009 (all)	11,393,645	0.8%	18,363,739	7.6%		29,757,384	4.2%
2008 (all)	11,484,063	19.7%	17,069,069	25.5%		28,553,132	23.1%
2007 (all)	9,595,923	5.5%	13,600,306	11.7%		23,196,229	9.1%
2006 (all)	9,091,693	21.0%	12,174,281	3.3%		21,265,974	10.2%
2005 (all)	7,512,282	38.3%	11,781,487	15.9%		19,293,769	23.7%
2004 (all)	5,430,925	69.9%	10,169,676	14.2%		15,600,601	28.9
2003 (all)	3,196,045	12.1%	8,908,268	4.7%		12,104,342	6.6%
2002 (all)	2,851,487		8,506,204			11,357,691

İstanbul Airport Load Statistics (cargo+freight+mail)

Year (months)	Load	%change	Cargo only ***	%change
2011 (all)*	1,064,229	12.4%	Not Avail. Yet	N/A
2010 (all)	947,021	15%	414,035	14%
2009 (all)	824,975	5.3%	367,501	5.0%
2008 (all)	766,221	4.3%	349,999	5.2%
2007 (all)	734,820	14%	332,753	13.7%
2006 (all)	644,901	4.7%	292,678	7.3%
2005 (all)	615,909	7%	272,735	3.1%
2004 (all)	573,284	14%	264,599	15.5%
2003 (all)	502,692	4.7%	229,076	8.4%
2002 (all)	480,022		211,412

(*) Preliminary data (**) Estimate based on total transit volume of Turkish airports. (***) Link:[5] Source: DHMI.gov.tr

Access

A view from the international terminal's entrance and exit areas and the connection bridge to the multi-storey car park.

There are several ways to travel between Atatürk International Airport and the city center.

• Light Rail Service : Light rail service exists between Aksaray and Atatürk International Airport. The line goes through some major parts of the European side of the city; including the intercity bus terminal. The LRT takes the passengers to Aksaray in 30–35 minutes. The approximate cost is 0.75 euros one-way.
• Airport Shuttle Service : The shuttle services are operated by Havaş, which is one of the major ground handling companies within Turkey. The busses run half-hourly to Bakırköy, Yenikapı, Aksaray, Taksim Square, hourly to Kozyatağı (on the Anatolian side), two-hourly to Etiler–Akmerkez. Also, there is a fast ferry terminal in Bakırköy which connects the terminal to Bostancı and Kadıköy. Havaş buses run between the airport and the fast ferry terminal according to the departures and arrivals of the ferries.
• Municipality Bus : Municipality buses also run to Taksim, Etiler and Kozyatağı. This is a slower but much cheaper alternative than Havaş.
• Car : The airport is accessible through the coastal road, D-100 international road and TEM (Trans-European Motorway).

Incidents and accidents

At the airport

• 2006 fire: At about 3:30 p.m. (local summer time, GMT+3) on 24 May 2006, a fire broke out in the cargo terminal (Terminal C) building, about 1 km away from the international and domestic terminal buildings, billowing clouds of black smoke and forcing the suspension of some air traffic. Local officials have reportedly attributed the fire to sparks from a soldering iron. Three people were treated for smoke inhalation. The fire was under control after 90 minutes of work by firemen accompanying two Bombardier CL-215 fire-fighting planes which were hired two days previously by the Metropolitan Municipality.
• On 23 March 2007 an Ariana Afghan Airlines Airbus A300B4 (YA-BAD) after a flight from Kabul via Ankara, landed at Atatürk International Airport, overran the runway and came to a halt resting on its right wing. The weather at the time was poor with rain and gusting winds. As of 2007 the aircraft was being dismantled.

• On 11 October 2007 a charter flight by Egypt's AMC Airlines, a McDonnell Douglas MD-83 (SU-BOY), made an emergency belly landing at the Atatürk International Airport while on route from Hurghada International Airport to Warsaw Frédéric Chopin Airport, overshooting the runway. There were no fatalities; there was one injury, and the plane was badly damaged.
• On 12 August 2010, Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 75, operated by Airbus A319-111 4K-AZ04 suffered a collapse of the undercarriage when the aircraft departed the runway on landing. The aircraft was substantially damaged but all 127 passengers and crew escaped unharmed.

Involving aircraft arriving to and departing from the airport

• 3 March 1974 - Turkish Airlines Flight 981, which crashed in France due to explosive decompression, killing all 346 people aboard. The main cause was a design fault on the cargo doors of DC-10 aircraft, registered TC-JAV and named Ankara. Prior to the Tenerife airport disaster, it was the deadliest aircraft disaster in the world.
• On 10 September 1976, a Trident 3B on British Airways Flight 476, flying from London Heathrow to Istanbul collided in mid-air with an Inex Adria DC9-32 near Zagreb, Croatia, resulting in the 1976 Zagreb mid-air collision. All 54 passengers and 9 crew members on the BA aircraft died.
• On 16 January 1983, Turkish Airlines Flight 158, a Boeing 727-2F2 (registration TC-JBR, named Afyon) landed about 50 m (160 ft) short of the runway at Ankara Esenboğa Airport (ESB/LTAC) in driving snow, broke up and caught fire. 47 passengers died, all of the seven crew and 13 passengers survived the accident with injuries.
• On 8 January 2003 - Turkish Airlines Flight 634, an Avro RJ-100 (registration: TC-THG, named Konya) crashed while on a VOR/DME approach to runway 34 at Diyarbakir Airport (DIY/LTCC), Turkey. 75 of the 80 passengers and crew died.
• 25 February 2009 - Turkish Airlines Flight 1951, a Boeing 737-800 from Istanbul, crashed on approach to Amsterdam Airport. The plane carried 128 passengers and 7 crew on board. Nine people died, 86 passengers were injured, of whom six in critical condition.

References

 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Air Force Historical Research Agency.

External links

• Atatürk International Airport Official Homepage
• Short Video on Ataturk International Airport
• Current weather for LTBA at NOAA/NWS
• Accident history for IST at Aviation Safety Network