The opening of its second runway is a huge boost for Sabiha Gökçen Airport (ISG) as it seeks to add more destinations to its rapidly blossoming network
That rarest of beasts should have appeared in Europe’s air transport system by the time this issue of ARGS is out: a new runway.
It may have been several years in the making, but by mid-November the second runway at Sabiha Gökçen (ISG), the Istanbul airport on the Asian side of the Bosphorus, should be open, upping the airport’s hourly movements from 40 to 65.
“With this second runway, we look forward to a significant increase in our capacity,” said Amirudin Rahmat, Deputy CEO of ISG, who joined the airport’s management team from parent Malaysia Airports in July 2023.
Speaking at Routes, he said: “Today we have slot restrictions so the new runway means we can free up slots and welcome more airlines. This aligns with our strategic growth plan to diversify our international market share.”
Sabiha is the ninth-busiest airport in Europe on the back of fast-growing Turkish low-cost airlines Pegasus and AJet (the new name for Turkish Airlines subsidiary AnadoluJet).
The former represents some 62% of Sabiha’s traffic and the latter 34%. AJet is also moving its headquarters from Ankara to Sabiha in March 2024, demonstrating the carrier’s commitment to the Istanbul market.
The airport is aiming to handle 36 million passengers this year and has a nominal capacity of 41 million. However, Sabiha will need more terminal space to fully realise the benefit of its second runway and double its overall capacity as the Ministry of Transport intends.
On the marketing side, Sabiha has set its sights on attracting more low-cost and network carriers to its ranks, in addition to facilitating the fast rise of its base airlines. “We would like to attract at least one European LCC and we are having talks with different players,” said Rahmat.
Markets to the west that are underserved or not served at all from Sabiha today are Poland, Portugal and Tunisia, while Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are on its route radar to the east, he said.
An interesting recent route announcement was the news that Batik Air from Malaysia will begin flying Airbus A330s from Kuala Lumpur to Sabiha four times a week from February 2024. This route will attract business, leisure and religious traffic, said Rahmat.
The prospect of a Malaysia link has prompted Sabiha’s marketing team to renew efforts to secure service to more south-east Asian cities like Bangkok and Jakarta. Such services would allow the airport to have indirect connections to Australia, he noted.
Sabiha has been successful in bringing in oneworld Alliance members, with British Airways, Qatar Airways and Royal Air Maroc all offering daily flights there.
Today the airport mainly serves point-to-point traffic, but transit flows have increased significantly in the past couple of years as Pegasus has developed a popular transfer product.
The airport has been part owned by Malaysia Airports since 2008 and became wholly owned by the group in 2014.
