rcsa
24th Sep 2018, 07:21
The Turkish Government has (not-quite) finished a vast new airport at Istanbul. It is due to open on 29 October, on which date the entire Turkish Airlines (THY) fleet and infrastructure will relocate from Ataturk International to the new airport.
I will be asking my firm to avoid making bookings on THY (a reasonable airline, with convenient routes to places we need to get to) for October and November, as I think this plan is a recipe for chaos.
An article from The Times (pay-walled) about the construction chaos, here
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/finishing-a-30-square-mile-airport-jewel-of-turkey-s-building-boom-by-next-month-may-be-beyond-even-president-erdogan-75crpjzw9
The (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/finishing-a-30-square-mile-airport-jewel-of-turkey-s-building-boom-by-next-month-may-be-beyond-even-president-erdogan-75crpjzw9The) airport, yet to be named, will carry 200 million passengers a year, almost three times as many as Heathrow, and cover 30 square miles by the Black Sea coast. Only 35 days before its scheduled opening, however, on October 29, Republic Day in Turkey, much is still outstanding.The huge terminal, built in the gaudy Central Asian style of Mr Erdogan’s 1,000-room palace in Ankara, sits amid unfinished roads. Last week diggers trundled alongside the buses bringing thousands of schoolchildren to the site for Teknofestival, a three-day expo of Turkish technology organised by a drone company owned by one of Mr Erdogan’s sons-in-law, Selcuk Bayraktar.
The tangle of roads and junctions leading from central Istanbul to the airport, 40 miles to the north, was eerily empty, the signs unpainted and many of the slip roads little more than dirt tracks. The route recommended by Google Maps quickly turned into a forest trail...The unions are warning that the airport will not be ready for the opening date and many of Istanbul’s residents are anticipating chaos. Ataturk Airport, the current main hub southwest of the city, will close as the new one opens. Most of the fleet of Turkish Airlines, the national carrier, will be moved in one day.“You know that in Turkey we always start things but we never finish them well,” said one airport worker who will be moving to the new site. “It is going to be an endless nightmare.”
I will be asking my firm to avoid making bookings on THY (a reasonable airline, with convenient routes to places we need to get to) for October and November, as I think this plan is a recipe for chaos.
An article from The Times (pay-walled) about the construction chaos, here
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/finishing-a-30-square-mile-airport-jewel-of-turkey-s-building-boom-by-next-month-may-be-beyond-even-president-erdogan-75crpjzw9
The (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/finishing-a-30-square-mile-airport-jewel-of-turkey-s-building-boom-by-next-month-may-be-beyond-even-president-erdogan-75crpjzw9The) airport, yet to be named, will carry 200 million passengers a year, almost three times as many as Heathrow, and cover 30 square miles by the Black Sea coast. Only 35 days before its scheduled opening, however, on October 29, Republic Day in Turkey, much is still outstanding.The huge terminal, built in the gaudy Central Asian style of Mr Erdogan’s 1,000-room palace in Ankara, sits amid unfinished roads. Last week diggers trundled alongside the buses bringing thousands of schoolchildren to the site for Teknofestival, a three-day expo of Turkish technology organised by a drone company owned by one of Mr Erdogan’s sons-in-law, Selcuk Bayraktar.
The tangle of roads and junctions leading from central Istanbul to the airport, 40 miles to the north, was eerily empty, the signs unpainted and many of the slip roads little more than dirt tracks. The route recommended by Google Maps quickly turned into a forest trail...The unions are warning that the airport will not be ready for the opening date and many of Istanbul’s residents are anticipating chaos. Ataturk Airport, the current main hub southwest of the city, will close as the new one opens. Most of the fleet of Turkish Airlines, the national carrier, will be moved in one day.“You know that in Turkey we always start things but we never finish them well,” said one airport worker who will be moving to the new site. “It is going to be an endless nightmare.”