Turkey begins switch to Istanbul Airport

The long-awaited process of shifting from the longtime home of Turkish civil aviation, Atatürk Airport, to the new Istanbul Airport has started.

The move will last for 45 hours and be completed just before midnight on Saturday if all goes according to plan.

Both the outgoing Atatürk Airport and the incoming Istanbul Airport will be closed to all passenger flights for a period of 12 hours, between 2 a.m. and 2 p.m. that day, Turkey’s Transport and Infrastructure Minister Mehmet Cahit Turhan said.

Atatürk International Airport, which was commissioned in 1953, will no longer serve commercial flights as of Saturday.

The airport, which handled 68 million people last year, will transition to other uses, such as training activities, aviation fairs and civil use.

The last plane to carry passengers from Atatürk Airport will fly to Singapore on Saturday at 2 a.m.

Flights at Istanbul Airport will increase gradually as of Saturday at 2 p.m.

The first flight after the big move will be to Ankara’s Esenboğa Airport.

In a press conference Wednesday, Turhan explained how currently some 1,300 planes take off and land at Atatürk Airport every day, while last year it served 465,000 planes. Atatürk Airport handled around 68 million passengers last year, while all three Istanbul airports, Atatürk, Sabiha Gökçen and Istanbul Airport, served more than 102.2 million domestic and international passengers last year.