Turkey's Erdogan inaugurates 'world's largest airport' in Istanbul

President declared airport will be named Istanbul Airport and 'is a great service we are offering to the region and the world'

Turkey’s ambitious and long-serving leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on Monday inaugurated what supporters have touted as the world’s largest airport, a sprawling complex of terminals and runways spread out across a set of former coal mines on a plot of land larger than New York’s Manhattan Island.

Mr Erdogan dubbed the new facility Istanbul Airport, ending months of speculation over its name which included rumours that he would allow it to be called after himself.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan inaugurates Istanbul Airport. (TRT World)

"Istanbul is not only our largest city," he said before a massive crowd of dignitaries, officials, and journalists, gathered beneath the vaulted ceiling of the airport terminal, "It is our most important brand. It’s a beautiful jewel between two seas. It can be compared to the sun of this earth."

He noted that many doubted that the colossal airport could be built when it was first proposed, and boasted that the country has managed to do so despite major challenges in a reference to several major terrorist attacks, spillover from the war in Syria, and a 2016 coup attempt that shook the nation.

"We have completed this project," he declared, "and we are officially launching the first stage. We did not build the Istanbul airport for our country. It is a great service we are offering to the region and the world."

The airport's size corresponds to the grand ambitions of Mr Erdogan, who has vowed to make Turkey, a nation of 81 million perched between Europe and Asia, a world power. “This is not just an airport. This is a monument to victory,” said a sign inside the facility at the opening ceremony.

The interior of Istanbul Airport during the inauguration ceremony on 29 October 2018 (TRT World)

The official inauguration of the $11 billion airport, the most expensive public works project in Turkey's history, coincided with the 95th anniversary of the founding of the Turkish Republic. But the airport will only regularly operate three domestic and two international routes until the end of the year. That’s when all planes and equipment from Istanbul’s main Ataturk International Airport will be transferred to the new facility, with some aircraft taken by road and others flying the 15-minute route.

Construction workers at Istanbul's new airport, during a media day Thursday, Oct. 25, 2018, ahead of its opening. (AP)

Istanbul's main airport, first opened 65 years ago and rebuilt 21 years ago, was named after Mustafa Kemal Ataturk who founded Turkey as a secular republic out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire. It is scheduled to be closed to regular commercial flights once the new airport is underway, and possibly used for private planes and training of pilots. Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen airport, on the city’s Asian or Anatolian side, will remain open.

Mr Erdogan, a former mayor of Istanbul, casts himself as Turkey’s master builder. Under the reign of his Justice and Development Party (AKP), hundreds of glittery shopping centres and apartment towers and signature public works projects including new universities, mosques, bridges, tunnels, hospitals, and railway projects have been built. Just a week earlier, Mr Erdogan was on hand to inaugurate a significant expansion of an Istanbul metro line.

But environmentalists, urban planners, and economists have critiqued the development rush, saying it takes little heed of the country’s ecology, generates haphazard urban sprawl, and has burdened the country with vast foreign debt.

While opening of the new airport was lauded as a “day of pride” by pro-government media, opposition newspapers lamented the shuttering of Ataturk, the world’s 15th busiest airport.

"The biggest closure in history of Republic," said a headline in the leftist Birgun. Human Rights Watch, the New York-based advocacy group, urged the release of dozens of labour leaders and activists arrested last month at the airport site in a protest over wages and rough working conditions. Airport officials say of 200,000 labourers employed, 30 have workers died on the job during the 42-month construction of the airport, while labour activists say 38 have died.

Visitors and workers are seen in the new airport building during a press tour of the Istanbul New Airport (Getty Images)

“Behind the glass and steel of President Erdogan’s newest mega-project, 30 construction workers and a union leader are sitting in jail for protesting poor working conditions,” Emma Sinclair-Webb, Human Rights Watch's Turkey director, said in a statement. “The jailed workers should be freed, the criminal investigations against them and many others dropped, and workers unfairly fired for protesting should get their jobs back."

Huseyin Kadri Samsunlu, CEO of the airport, told reporters on Thursday that management was sensitive to labour concerns and that improvements had already been made. "We are fixing the problems they raised," he said. "I'm always open to peaceful demands. They raised issues, and I listened."

Mr Samsunlu said Turkish airlines urged the soft opening to identify any potential problems before the move from Ataturk gets underway. It will be a massive logistical operation, and may be documented by a National Geographic film crew.

A metro line connecting the airport to the city 20 miles away will begin operations in two years; in the meantime buses will shuttle passengers to the terminal, located near the shores of the Black Sea, from 18 locations throughout the city. A new smartphone app will help guide passengers from the city to the terminal.

The new airport is set to eventually handle as many as 200 million passengers a year, twice is many as Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson. It was built by a consortium of five large, politically connected Turkish contractors – Limak, Kolin, Cengiz, Mapa and Kalyon – on a build-operate-transfer model that will allow the builders to reap profits off the facility for the next 20 years while paying the country $25 billion in rent. London-based firm Grimshaw Global led the design team for the terminal, which includes skylights inspired by Ottoman-era mosques.

The first daily flight from the airport will begin on 31 October, to the Turkish capital of Ankara, followed by daily flights to Izmir, and Antalya as well as to the Azerbaijani capital of Baku and Ercan, the capital of the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus. The launch of full operations has been pushed back to 29 December.

Istanbul Airport press centre shows the new airport building, in the Arnavutkoy district on the European side of Istanbul (AFP/Getty Images)

The airport's cheerleaders have boasted of its outsize specifications that include a 22,000-camera surveillance system, a 53,000 square-meter duty free complex described as the world's largest, a 42 kilometre baggage handling system, 225,000 employees, and a footprint of 76 million square meters.

During the first phase it eventually expected to handle up to 90 million passengers a year flying to 350 destinations by over 250 carriers, some of whom have been clamouring for years for access to Istanbul. Two more phases will bring capacity up to 200 million passengers per year.

The airport will give a boost the country's flagship carrier, Turkish Airlines, as it competes with Arabian Peninsula airlines such as Emirates, Qatar Airways, and Etihad as well as European airlines for dominance of Eurasia. On Monday, Turkish Airlines announced a code-sharing partnership with Hong Kong Airlines, expanding its reach into fast-growing Asian cities.

Artist's rendering shows Istanbul's new airport once it will be completed and fully operational. (IGA ) (IGA)

Istanbul – located nine hours by plane from both New York and Shanghai – may be ideally situated to serve as such a hub. One economist noted that it lies within an 11-hour flight of 80 percent of the world's population.

“With this airport we aim to bring the world closer together with a major hub at the intersection of Asia, Europe and the Middle East," Mr Samsunlu told reporters on Thursday. "Our challenge is to be the biggest and the best."