By Duncan Mackay

Turkish Airline plane landingMay 8 - A consortium of Turkish companies have won the €22.15 billion (£18.72 billion/$29.03 billion) tender to build Istanbul's new airport, which will play a key role if the city is awarded the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics.


The winning group, made up equally by the construction and infrastructure companies Limak, Cengiz, Kolin, Mapa and Kalyon, beat rivals including Fraport, the operator of Frankfurt airport, and TAV, the operator of Istanbul's Ataturk airport, which the new airport is set to replace.

The Turkish Government wants the airport, which will be the biggest in the world and be located on the European side of the city, to have six runways eventually and capacity for 150 million passengers when it is finished in 2017.

"This is a real milestone in Istanbul's history," said Hasan Arat, the chairman of Istanbul 2020.

"The third airport will help us to keep delivering outstanding levels of service to all the city's visitors.

"Turkey's 2023 Master Plan is testament to this country's ambition: Istanbul has changed, our place in the world has changed, and we are nowhere near the top of our arc.

"The development going on in Istanbul will make the city more liveable and better connected for generations to come."

Both Turkish Airlines, which now flies to 99 countries - more than any other carrier - and the Government, which owns 49 per cent of the airline, are vigorously promoting Istanbul as a hub.

The tender was completed just as new figures have emerged showing that the number of foreign tourists visiting Istanbul in the first four months of 2013 reached 2.92 million, a 21 per cent increase on the same period last year.

"This airport will address the needs of Turkey for probably the next 50 years," said Binali Yıldırım, Turkey's Minister of Transportation, Maritime Affairs and Communications.

Since its previous Olympic bid, Istanbul has delivered a wide range of extensive infrastructure projects through a major development programme.

There are a series of other major development projects already underway or planned before the centenary of the Republic in 2023, including the third Bosphorus Bridge, the Haliç Metro, the Eurasia Bosphorus road tunnel and the Marmaray rail tunnel.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


Related stories
February 2013: Turkey launches tender to build world's biggest airport that will be ready for Istanbul 2020
December 2012: Istanbul 2020 bid boosted by plans to build world's biggest airport