ISTFlyer

From now on we could discuss operations from Istanbul Airport ( ISL ) { which are not related to a single airline } and other terminal and operation related to Istanbul Airport ( lounge, concourse, shops&food areas, transportation ) here. Also, this thread would be essential to discuss the movement. In addition to this facilites around the airport could also be discussed here.

You are welcome to share any content that is related to Istanbul Airport ( ISL ) directly.

For Turkish Airlines operations from Istanbul Airport ( queries like flight destinations, schedule... ) please visit the Turkish Airlines forum; however if you think that your question/discussion is airport related, please feel free to use this thread.

For photos that you want to share, you are invited to use the "Pictures from Istanbul Airport" thread that is already in the Europe forum. But, it would be useful to share photos related to discussions on this thread.

I would create a small wiki about Istanbul Airport here and update it as I gain more information. To be convenient for everyone, I would edit this specific post to add the wiki as it would be useful to have the WIKI in top of the page.

mafaky

Thank you for creating this thread. It was much needed. Will hopefully contribute to this one, as much as possible and as soon as possible...

ISTFlyer

In this specific tweet by Bilal Ekşi, he had mentioned that they would expand their operations from Istanbul Airport by new routes.
On the side of Istanbul Airport, this could be the signal of a delay of the grand movement. Otherwise, he would have written something like " We are happy to move to our new home " etc...

mafaky

Fully agreed; I guess it's not misleading to read between the lines. On one side, there seems to be a lot of yet uncompleted but relatively minor issues as far as the construction side is concerned. Software, security, baggage conveyors, etc. (the big topics) are all O.K. TSA issue still seems to be one missing link as well as the finalisation of TK's and others' CIP Lounges, the other!

Now, the latest (and partly insider) information I have received as the excuse of the postponement of March 1st-3rd big-bang movement from Ataturk AP: There still are unseen but important construction work to be finalised. These are mainly concerned with TK's (and other airlines') infrastucture in the terminal, needless to add the CIP Lounges. TK, definitely refuses to make that big and final move from Ataturk AP, unless these are finished at the new site. This will take place sometime in April, at a yet unspecified agenda.

These repeated successive postponements wouldn't have happened, and there would be no loss of face if they had made better planning. The settling date would still be April, but without fuss. The opening on 29th October 2018 has been totally premature and only served to fulfill the egos of the politicians! (Actually it also eliminated that IGA will start receiving any penalties for late finishing and on the contrary it also enabled IGA to start the taximeter for the State provided and committed passenger guarantee). Some time later, I will give more details about this guarantee system.

mafaky

Just a small notice about the taxiing times at ISL. Many already know these taxiing times are pretty long. Especially if the flight departs from the Domestic G-Gates and takes off from Rwy 36/14 (the most west side one...) when there's a strong southern wind. In such case, the plane has to taxi as far as the northern end (the "seaside" end) of the runway and takes off towards the land direction. One really takes a good long airport sightseeing tour as this takes around 22-24 minutes at a ground speed of 35-40 knots (and without any interruption during the taxiing..).

Now may I inform you that TK estimated an average of only 8 minutes for taxi, in its overall operations at ISL (for take offs & landings) from/to the gate. Imagine (or try to calculate) how much extra fuel TK (and other airlines) will burn in practice (reality), according to this premature and pretty much misleading calculation.

gr8pirate

ISTFlyer

The movement to the new airport has been postponed to an unannounced date. According to Halk TV ( Turkish news channel ), IGA has sent their employees a message that the airport is postponed to a future date that is not yet stated. The most popular rumor for the movement date is the beginning of April.

Sinter

I'm still going to stick with April 23rd

Thanks to you, mafaky and others for grabbing the Turkish headlines and rumors for us.

mafaky

Well, why April 23rd? Makes little sense with the understanding of the present day governing party and President Erdogan. May 29th will suit them much much better!

hfly

April is not going to happen, it is a dream, not before October at the earliest.

ISTFlyer

Airporthaber ( Aviation website in Turkey ) indicates that the movement would be postponed to 2 or 7 April.

mafaky

Is this only a gutfeel or is it an educated guess behind which you have some reliable clues?

My personal opinion (guess) is beginning April may still be difficult, or say a rather "imposed" and "difficult to achieve without bearing the negative consequences" date. A date in the second half of May 2109 looks more realistic to me. Buuut: if they can't do it by the end of May, yes they will really have to postpone it to October, because of the intervening high and hot summer season. The best they can do is to shift some more domestic and international flights to ISL but still keeping the ISL:IST airplane movements on 1:10 or 1.5:10 ratio. It will be technically impossible (or very very risky) on the ATC side to split the total aircraft movements on fifty fifty (or even 2:10) basis for both airports.

Romanianflyer

Makes sense.

I also cannot believe that TK would welcome such a split of flights between ISL and IST given the huge amount of connecting passengers. It would make many short to medium layovers impossible if needing to change airport - and thousands of potential costumers would even simply not buy a ticket at all if they see an airport change is required. They might move over a few more flights with a relative low number of connecting passengers or routes of which they know they can take a hit as they are one of the few airlines operating it (for example the route to ECN route in Northern Cyprus being among the first which was already moved over).

For TK it would probably mean moving all flights to ISL at once, or stay at IST for the time being until ISL is completely ready.

ISTFlyer

Just to mention, all flights which are operated to/from Istanbul Airport (ISL) are additional flights and none are flights moved from Atatürk Airport. In the future, until the movement, TK wouldn't move any flights from Atatürk Airport to Istanbul Airport. Yes, they would add new flights; as I heard there would be Dalaman and Bodrum flights and more TRNC ( Ercan ), Antalya, Izmir flights during the summer unless the movement occurs, also there are more rumors that Turkish Airlines plans to add more flights to Istanbul Airport from Europe, using their night-stopper aircrafts. ( For example an aircraft that remains parked from 22:00 to 08:00 in a European airport would operate a XXX-ISL-XXX rotation within the 10 hour. ) In addition to this, the number of domestic destinations would increase. Probably, the scheduling team of TK is now planning their ISL operations from 1 Mar to the next date of postponement and they would probably open reservations after the official announcement after 20 Feb.

Bilal Ekşi, CEO of Turkish Airlines, had posted this tweet on Tuesday that he mentioned new routes from Istanbul Airport would start soon.


Also flights ticketed directly from Turkish Airlines ( website, call center, sales office ) only permits tickets from/to ISL connect only to another flight to/from ISL. However, airport changes from/to SAW and from/to IST is permitted. To connect from/to ISL from/to IST or SAW, passengers must have separate tickets and it would be their own responsibility to make their connecting flights.

mafaky

I guess, unless something goes very very and unexpectedly wrong, we can take April 7th as the first day when Istanbul Airport will have full operations overtaken from Ataturk. The "big movement" will take place on 5th & 6th.