Turkish Airlines heads-up
 

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 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.”

Yet to be named?
Sultan Erdogan The Great International!

Thanks for the heads up, we are transiting through with THY in December. Will let you all know what the business lounge is like (if its finished).

On descent to IST with BA last November I saw this behemoth on the coast and I wondered what on earth it was it was way up by the Black Sea -
My pal locally told me it was the new airport...
It is a loooong way from the City - much further from the city than say the 'new' ATH airport that was put out in Sparta.

Is BA relocating too?

They don't have a choice! The present airport will only cater for GA and military. It will no longer be available for commercial airline traffic.

Yikes it will be a right old trek....

does anybody have any additional insight as to the new IST not only opening on 29OCT, but operations actually being shifted there ?

Am hearing that access roads are yet to be completed, that allegedly catering facilities are not yet ready (meaning that all catering would be trucked over from the current Airport), etc

it Looks like Opening 29OCT, but not operational until end Dec 2018:

https://www.bloomberght.com/haberler...ihi-belli-oldu
Funda Ocak, General Director of State Airports Authority (DHMİ), called the meeting of aviation organizations, including the airlines, to move to Istanbul New Airport on 29 October.
In the article about the meeting, it is stated that after the opening of the new airport in Istanbul on 29 October with a ceremony, the "Big Bang" procedure, which is planned to be held on 30-31 October, will be carried out on 30-31 December 2018 and will be used for "testing the integrated terminal facilities of the process"..

(courtesy of Google Translate)