Istanbul Airport. Photo: Shutterstock Istanbul Airport continues to expand at a pace that demonstrates its extraordinary size. Turkey inaugurated a sixth main runway this week, with an investment of 890 million euros. It should be noted that the airport currently operates four main runways and two that serve as backup runways.
The new runway, 2,820 meters long and 45 meters wide, is the first at the planned airport in an east-west direction, while the three previous active main runways are located in a north-south direction. In the first phase, it will be used mainly for take-offs, especially for flights to Antalya, Central Asia and the Arabian Peninsula.
The new direction is expected to allow aircraft to take off more directly on these routes, thereby shortening transfer and waiting times and saving fuel and emissions. According to a statement from the Turkish Civil Aviation Authority, the proximity to the hangar areas is also expected to streamline general aviation operations.
The new route joins the existing activity at the port, in which three routes function simultaneously and independently - a capability that was first activated in Europe in April 2025. Simultaneous operation of the four routes is planned for later.
The numbers illustrate the size of the hub: in 2025, 84.5 million passengers passed through it, and at the current stage it is capable of handling approximately 90 million passengers per year.
With the completion of all development phases, the planned capacity will reach 200 million passengers per year. In 2025, flights to 337 destinations around the world operated from Istanbul Airport, with approximately 80% of the activity operated by Turkish Airline.