Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Abdulkadir Uraloglu stated that the 2nd runway of Sabiha Gokcen Airport will be opened by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and said, “Tomorrow, we will be proud to successfully complete one of the most important projects of our country in the field of aviation.”
Uraloglu, who made inspections at Sabiha Gokcen Airport before the opening, expressed his condolences for the soldiers who were martyred in the conflict with terrorists in the Operation Claw-Lock region.
Stating that these treacherous attacks have been held accountable and will continue to be held accountable, Uraloglu said, “They will never be able to intimidate us with these treacherous attacks. They will not be able to destroy our unity and integrity. They will not be able to prevent the growth and development of our country and our development-oriented investments such as the 2nd runway of Sabiha Gokcen Airport, which we will open tomorrow.”
Uraloglu stated that they will be proud to successfully complete one of the country’s most important projects in the field of aviation by opening the second runway of Sabiha Gokcen Airport tomorrow with the honor of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Uraloglu emphasized that airport services will be even more important in the future due to the increase in relations between countries in the globalization process. “At this point, with its geographically key location in the middle of the Asian, European and African continents, with its advantageous location at the center of 67 countries, where 1.4 billion people live and a trade volume of $8 trillion 600 billion, located on the flight routes between developed markets and developing markets, with a flight time of only 4 hours, our country is very suitable to become the transit center of the world in the field of aviation.”
“Our Sabiha Gokcen Airport needed a serious capacity increase”
Abdulkadir Uraloglu said that aviation activities have entered a very rapid growth process, thanks to the competitive environment created by the opening of the sector to private enterprises, within the scope of the “civil aviation policy” they started in 2002.
Pointing out that there have been significant increases in the number of domestic and international passengers due to falling costs, the renewal and activation of idle airports, and newly built airports, Uraloglu said:
“Today, I would like to proudly state that, acting with the goal of ‘there will be no point in the world that we cannot reach’, we have transformed our country into one of the countries with the largest flight network in the world, as a result of increasing competition, encouraging policies and our exemplary practices. With the bridges we built in the sky, we have become a leading global aviation center in the field of aviation.”
Uraloglu stated that Turkiye will rise to the 3rd place among European countries and the 6th place in the world in the total passenger traffic ranking of European and world airports in 2022. He stated that in terms of passenger traffic, the three airports are among the top 20 in Europe and the top 50 in the world.
Uraloglu stated that the second runway and complementary structures project of Sabiha Gokcen Airport is one of the most important airline projects under construction.
“We are proud to have successfully completed this important project. Our Sabiha Gokcen Airport needed a serious capacity increase due to the increasing number of passengers and the demand from our citizens. For this reason, we have initiated work to develop Sabiha Gokcen Airport from an innovative and visionary perspective. At Sabiha Gokcen, which hosted approximately 25 million passengers with approximately 181 thousand flight traffic on domestic and international lines in 2021, this number increased to approximately 31 million passengers in 2022. There will be a 21% increase in the number of passengers compared to last year.
Today, Sabiha Gokcen Airport is the third airport with the highest passenger traffic in our country, after Istanbul Airport and Antalya Airport. We anticipate that this number will continue to increase at much greater rates in the coming years with the second runway we will put into service. We will use our new runway for landing and the old runway for takeoff, as it will be the most efficient use in terms of air traffic and will provide maximum capacity. Thus, we will at least double the air traffic capacity of Sabiha Gokcen Airport.”
“During construction, we regretfully followed the criticisms regarding the tunnels passing under the runway.”
Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Uraloglu stated that they renewed all the infrastructure and superstructure facilities of Sabiha Gokcen Airport, such as the air traffic control tower, technical block, customs, fire brigade and garage building, which has a closed area of 19 thousand square meters, with the latest technology of the age.
Uraloglu stated that the 91-meter-high Air Traffic Control Tower has been serving 24/7 air traffic operations with all air traffic systems for approximately 1 year. “With the second runway we have built, which is 60 meters wide and 3 thousand 540 meters long, the widest-bodied aircraft will be able to land at our airport. In addition, 3 parallel taxiways, 1 3 thousand 520 meters, 1 3 thousand meters and 1 2 thousand 400 meters long, a medium apron of approximately 650 thousand square meters with a capacity of 62 aircraft and a cargo apron of approximately 300 thousand square meters with a capacity of 40 aircraft were also implemented within the scope of the project.”
Stating that they built the new runway 540 meters longer than the existing runway, Uraloglu concluded his words as follows:
“In order to ensure that the runway can pass over the TEM Highway and the D100 Connection Road and that the new terminal building, which will increase the passenger capacity of Sabiha Gokcen Airport, can be built; We also built the TEM Connection Tunnel, which is 1,520 meters long and will provide double-tube traffic flow. This is the tunnel that was falsely shared, especially on social media, claiming that they built a tunnel where there were no mountains. We also built the TEM Connection Tunnel, the 1,636-meter-long Kemiklidere Improvement Tunnel, the 960-meter-long highway tunnel for access to the cargo and hangar area, and the 838-meter-long middle apron tunnel. We regretfully followed the criticisms regarding the tunnels passing under the runway during the construction of our 2nd runway. Now, I think they understand better what those tunnels are for. I hope those who made those criticisms can use these tunnels to reach our airport faster, more comfortably and safely.”
Source: Trthaber / Prepared by Irem Yildiz