Tag: third Istanbul airport

Istanbul’s stunning new airport

The dramatic new airport proposed for Istanbul. AFP-Relaxnews

Images for the world’s largest airport terminal under one roof have been released.

Terminal One of the Istanbul Grand Airport will stretch to almost one million square meters, featuring a vaulted ceiling whose geometric roof and layout design will reinforce passenger flows.

Skylights provide natural daylight, which is diffused through the ceiling in focused beams, highlighting key areas such as check-in, security, passport control and stores.

Both modern and functional, the designs include a large plaza and a seamlessly integrated transport forecourt.

The six-runway project is being led by an international architectural team comprising Grimshaw, the Nordic Office of Architecture and Haptic Architects.

The terminal, based on the Black Sea coast 35km outside of Istanbul, will be completed in four phases. The first phase will open in 2018 and aims to serve 90 million passengers per year, with that number increasing to over 150 million passengers per annum once the building is fully complete.

Grimshaw Partner Andrew Thomas said, “We are delighted to have been appointed to this bold and aspirational project. We share the consortium’s ambitions to develop a truly outstanding airport design worthy of the world city of Istanbul.”

AFP-Relaxnews

via iafrica.com Istanbul’s stunning new airport.

April 24, 2014
Norwegian firm to design Istanbul’s new airport

Norwegian firm to design Istanbul’s new airport

Istanbul Ataturk Airport

The Oslo-based architecture firm Nordic Office of Architecture has won an international competition to design what’s expected to become the world’s largest airport, in Istanbul. Gudmund Stokke, partner and manager of the firm, called it “a bit of a dream to land in this position.”

The firm, formerly known as Narud Stokke Wiig Architects and Planners, joined with the British Grimshaw firm to beat out eight other contenders for the job. Nordic Office specializes in designing modern airports and was behind Oslo’s main airport at Gardermoen and its current expansion project, the Rajiv Gandhi Airport in Hyderabad, India, the Hanimaadhoo Airport in the Maldives and several in the Arctic areas of Norway.

The new airport in Istanbul will be designed to accommodate 90 million passengers a year, and 150 million within 10 years. Its first phase is due to open in 2019.

The project will also be the largest in Turkish history, opening with three runways and a terminal covering a million square meters. It aims to become a major hub, with Nordic Office in charge of the master plan and design. Stokke wouldn’t reveal the value of the contract.

newsinenglish.no staff

October 13, 2013
New Istanbul Airport Offers Opportunities for U.S. Firms

The construction of a new Istanbul airport, which will be one of the world’s largest, presents more than $1 billion in U.S. equipment and service export opportunities, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.

Key areas for potential cooperation include: full-field architecture, design, engineering, procurement and construction; terminal and ground control radar; fire safety and security systems; energy efficient technologies; and ICT equipment, including arrival/departure notifications and reservation hardware/software.

The U.S. government, led by the Department of Commerce, is prepared to assist all U.S. companies interested in these business opportunities. Contact Michael.Lally@trade.gov, the department’s senior commercial officer in Ankara, Turkey, for more information.

via AviationNews.net.

May 14, 2013
Limak-Led Group Wins Istanbul Airport Deal in Record Auction

Limak-Led Group Wins Istanbul Airport Deal in Record Auction

A consortium led by Limak Holding will build and operate Istanbul’s third airport, aimed at establishing Istanbul as an international flight hub with one of the world’s biggest terminals.

By Emre Peker, Yeliz Candemir, Aysegul Akyarli Guven

ISTANBUL—A Turkish consortium on Friday won a $29 billion tender—the biggest in Turkey’s history—to build and operate one of the world’s largest airports in Istanbul, marking the most concrete sign of the country’s ambition to become a global transit hub.

The group led by Limak Holding AS, a conglomerate with interests ranging from airport operations to construction and tourism, secured the right to run Istanbul’s third airport for 25 years after bidding €22.2 billion ($29.1 billion) plus taxes. The five-company winning consortium, which also includes Cengiz Holding AS, Kolin Insaat, Mapa AS and Kalyon Group, won the tender by nearly doubling its initial €12.7 billion bid.

The consortium’s prize is an airport slated to triple Istanbul’s existing annual capacity to 210 million passengers a year in what would be the world’s second largest international terminal behind Dubai. The price tag totaled almost 3% of Turkey’s gross domestic product and more than triple the $6.55 billion Saudi Oger Group paid to purchase a 55% stake in Turk Telekomunikasyon AS’s 2005 privatization—the government’s largest sale on record until Friday.

Limak Chairman Nihat Ozdemir said after the auction that the investment represented “trust in Turkey’s future growth.” Turkey’s government hailed the news as a vote of confidence in its stewardship of the economy.

“This airport won’t only meet Turkey’s needs, but also be a hub for all the traffic from west to east, east to west, from Africa to Europe,” Transport Minister Binali Yildirim said in televised comments after the auction.

The Turkish government’s effort to build a global transit hub in Istanbul forms a key part in a broader strategy to triple the country’s GDP to $2 trillion in the next decade and join the ranks of the world’s top-10 economies.

Emblematic of the effort to boost air transport capability is the dramatic expansion of national carrier Turkish Airlines. Since the ruling Justice and Development Party swept to power in 2002, the carrier’s passenger volume has nearly quadrupled. Turkish Airlines this year ordered some 95 planes from Boeing Co. and another 117 jets from Airbus, a unit of European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co., in an effort to double its fleet and expand its global footprint.

Despite Turkey’s obvious ambition, some analysts pointed to funding concerns given the price tag for Friday’s tender, which also includes development costs of €10 billion and about €4 billion in taxes at a rate of 18%.

Turkey has in recent years canceled or delayed about $10 billion worth of tenders as local consortiums proved incapable of financing their winning bids. Most recently, a joint venture by three members of the airport consortium—Cengiz, Limak and Kolin—asked the authorities to delay finalizing a $1.96 billion electricity-grid purchase they concluded in December.

Mehmet Cengiz, chairman of Cengiz Holding, said Friday that the consortium would have no difficulty financing the new airport.

“We have arranged loans on all fronts and plan to use both international financing and domestic funding,” Mr. Cengiz said in an interview. He said the breakdown of local and foreign financing wasn’t yet set as the consortium was still evaluating borrowing costs. The group won’t use credit to meet the 20% equity-stake requirement for the airport project.

On Friday, shares of TAV Airports Holding Co., Turkey’s top airport operator, fell 7.8%. The Istanbul-based company, which sold a 38% stake to France’s Aeroports de Paris for $874 million last year, dropped out after bidding at just over €22 billion.

Mak-Yol Insaat, one of two other participants, quit following an offer of €4 billion. Another also-ran was a partnership formed by Turkey’s IC Ibrahim Cecen Yatirim Holding AS and German airport operator Fraport AG, which had the highest opening bid at €20 billion. Fraport, which also runs the Antalya airport with IC Holding on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, saw its shares slide by about 2% after losing the tender.

via Limak-Led Group Wins Istanbul Airport Deal in Record Auction – Wall Street Journal – WSJ.com.

May 4, 2013
New Istanbul Airport Will Kill 658,000 Old Trees

Laurie Balbo

Turkey’s booming aviation industry is planning new development that will wipe out over half a million old-growth trees.

Istanbul aims to build its third airport on nearly a square kilometer of previously pristine forest in the northern, European part of the city, on Lake Terkos near the Black Sea. With six runways and an annual capacity of 150 million passengers, Transport Minister Binali Yildirim told Turkish newspaper Zaman “it will be the largest airport in the world.”

Capable of surpassing passenger throughput at London’s Heathrow and the trio of airports in the United Arab Emirates, this new facility will be so large it’ll be visible from space.

An environmental impact report (ÇED) prepared by the Ministry of Environment assessed probable environmental effects from project construction. It predicts that, if the airport is built as planned, more than half a million trees spanning ten species will be chopped.

The project site is 80 percent forested, dense growth that acts as a natural carbon sink for populous Istanbul. Airport development, with associated deforestation, will interrupt carbon’s natural cycling and considerably increase regional air pollution.

Carbon cycling is the natural transfer of carbon between the biosphere and earth’s atmosphere, Trees and plants are the primary transfer agents.

Forests pull CO2 out of the atmosphere as part of photosynthesis. A series of biochemical reactions convert the CO2 into glucose, which fuels plant cell function, growing biomass. Carbon in plantlife is conventionally released back to the atmosphere through respiration, burning, and biomass decay.

Large-scale deforestation eliminates natural carbon storage, releases unnatural amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, and reduces forward capacity to suck CO2 from the air. All serve to accelerate anthropogenic climate change.

The ÇED, recently released on the ministry’s website, states that airport construction will cause irreversible damage to the area’s forest and water ecosystems. “The area where the third airport is planned to be built is 7,650 hectares, and 6,172 hectares of this field consists of forested area, 1,180 hectares are used for mining, 660 hectares constitute a lake, 236 hectares are used for pasture and 60 hectares are used for agricultural activities. There are 2,513,341 trees in the area…maritime pine, stone pine, Calabrian pine, black pine, oak, hornbeam, narrow-leafed ash, linden, Norway maple and cedar.”

The report states that there are 70 animal species living in the forest, and warns that the proposed development will destroy the area’s vegetation and natural features. Increased vehicle traffic and urbanization following airport construction will exacerbate air pollution and habitat loss.

Istanbul has two international airports: Ataturk on the European side (37 million annual passengers) and Sabiha Gokcen on the Asiatic (13 million annual passengers). The third airport is expected to create 100,000 new jobs in this city of 15 million people.

Image of felled trees from Shutterstock

April 26, 2013
Almost 700,000 trees to be cut down for Istanbul’s third airport

A total number of 657,000 trees will be cut down for construction of Istanbul’s third airport, a report published on the Turkish Environment Ministry’s official website says.

The report says the total number of trees in the area is 2,513,341 and 657,950 of them will be cut down completely, while 1,855,391 trees will be moved to new places.

However, the exact number of trees expected to be cut down and moved will be revealed after the airport’s project is completed, officials told Hürriyet Daily News yesterday.

April 20, 2013