Istanbul’s new mega airport — a pet project of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — has plunged into dire straits only a year after it became operational as the aviation industry reels from the COVID-19 crisis.

With air travel largely suspended across the world as part of measures to contain the pandemic, Turkey’s aviation sector — a rising star of the Turkish economy in the past two decades — has all but plummeted. Not only airline companies but also airport operators — many of them public-private partnerships — are bracing for huge losses.

Standing out among them is the Istanbul Airport, which became operational in April 2019 and was already under financial strain. The posh hub — mired in controversy over its economic viability and environmental impact since its inception — has seen its ambitious targets blown to smithereens by the pandemic. How its operator will keep afloat is a big question mark. 

While a damage assessment for the Turkish aviation sector has yet to be drawn up, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) warned April 14 that, globally, the COVID-19 crisis would see airline passenger revenues drop by $314 billion this year, a 55% decline compared to 2019, in a scenario of severe travel restrictions lasting for three months. According to the IATA, the livelihoods of some 65.5 million people across the world are dependent on the aviation industry, including sectors such as travel and tourism. Among them are 2.7 million airline jobs. The IATA estimates that some 25 million jobs in aviation and related sectors are now endangered, including 11.2 million in the Asia-Pacific region, 5.6 million in Europe, 2.9 million in Latin America, 2 million each in North America and Africa and 900,000 in the Middle East.