ONE CITY, TWO AIRPORTS

One city, two airports: Istanbul and Ataturk & Sabiha Gokcen



One city, two airports: Istanbul and Ataturk & Sabiha Gokcen

Answer 1

Critical Assessment: Istanbul Ataturk Airport: Consequences of Physical Design and Capacity Limitations

Istanbul is seen as not only the largest city, but also the national financial centre of Turkey. The city is a major tourist attraction of the country. Also, due to the central geographic location, many business professionals visit the city from Middle East, North Africa, Gulf, Central Asia, Eastern Europe and Black Sea Region on regular basis. Istanbul Ataturk airport is the main airport of the city. It is situated in the European side; a location where many direct flights from major cities can arrive and depart conveniently (AWCC, 2012). This Airport is considered as the 6th busiest international airport in Europe, as well as the fastest growing European airport. Figure 1 shows the number of passengers handled by Istanbul Ataturk airport during the past two years.

Figure 1: Passengers handled by Istanbul Ataturk Airport

As depicted from the figure, there is clear growth in the number of passengers, with no evidence of slowing down of the air traffic for the airport. If the same air traffic rate continues in 2013, the airport is expected to leave behind even the Madrid, which is currently the fifth busiest airport. Figure 2 shows the number of passengers served by the airport on monthly basis.

This increasing traffic load is the significant factor on which modern airport's infrastructure should depend. To meet with the demands of the increased number of passengers, the capacity of airports have been increasing. Thus, the airport area and capacity becomes an important factor to depict that whether or not a particular airport is able to handle the ever growing demands. To determine the effective area of airport, the area of the passenger building, the landing area, the cargo handling area, all are taken into consideration.

The main airport of the city can be accessed by various means, including light rail service, airport shuttle service, municipality bus and obviously, through the private cars. There are 4 terminals at the Istanbul Ataturk Airport. Terminal 1 is used for domestic flights, 2 is used for international flights, 3 is used for cargo flights and finally, the terminal 4 is used for the purposes of general aviation.

As discussed above, Istanbul Ataturk Airport plays an essential role for domestic and international connections. Thus, the limitations in capacity or services of this airport may have severe impacts on the country's economic growth, global connections and business opportunities. The major consequence of the capacity limitations for the city was the danger of reducing number of visitors and tourists that visit the country throughout the year. According to a report published in 2010, the city is visited by nearly 20, 343, 000 international passengers, annually (Sarigul, 2012. P.4). Clearly, a single airport could not accommodate this large number of airway passengers. Due to the limited capacity of runway, the flight schedules may affect negatively, ...