Turkey’s ever-controversial Istanbul Airport is back in the eye of a political storm, sparked by opposition claims that a plan to sell its operations to Gulf investors is behind a government decision to demolish the city’s iconic but now-idle Ataturk Airport.
The sprawling Istanbul Airport became operational in 2018 amid simmering criticism over its financial merits, location and environmental impact, coupled with allegations of cronyism regarding the companies involved in the project. The posh facility, launched with an initial capacity to handle 90 million passengers per year and plans for further expansion to 200 million passengers, led to the closure of the historic Ataturk Airport, becoming the sole airport on Istanbul’s European side.
Senior opposition figures claim that plans are underway to sell IGA, the company operating the Istanbul Airport. And in order to please potential buyers from the Gulf, they claim, the government has decided to demolish the Ataturk Airport’s runways to preclude any revival of the facility in the future as a rival to the Istanbul Airport. The decision, they argue, is driven by concerns that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) could lose the next elections, due in June 2023 at the latest, to an opposition that pledges to review all major public projects under the AKP over allegations of corruption, nepotism and malfeasance.
The Good Party’s Ali Kidik, a member of the Istanbul municipal assembly and a veteran watcher of the aviation sector, was the first to raise the claims last week after heavy machinery was lined up at the Ataturk Airport. “The real reason why they want to hastily demolish the Ataturk Airport is the negotiations for the sale of the Istanbul Airport,” Kidik told Al-Monitor. He said he had learned that the Emirati operator of the Abu Dhabi Airport was “the most serious” potential buyer. “In order to buy the Istanbul Airport, it wants to physically see that no other airport could operate on Istanbul’s European side. That’s why heavy machines were hastily amassed there,” he added.
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