Turkish airports serve nearly 189 mln passengers

ISTANBUL

The total passenger traffic at Türkiye’s airports has increased by 23 percent in the first seven months of the year from a year ago to 184.5 million.

International passengers grew 27 percent year-on-year to 66.7 million, while 51.8 million travelers on domestic routes went through the airports between January-July, according to the data from the General Directorate of State Airports Authority (DHMİ).

Istanbul Airport saw total passenger traffic rise 26 percent to 43.3 million. The annual increase was 24 percent to 20.6 million for Sabiha Gökçen, another large airport in Istanbul.

The airport in Antalya, one of Türkiye’s major tourist hotspots, welcomed nearly 15 million international passengers, up 24 percent from January-July last year.

In July, airplane traffic on domestic and international routes grew by 10 percent from a year earlier, Transport Minister Abdülkadir Uraloğlu said in a statement.

The airports served 9.3 million domestic and 14.9 million international passengers last month, according to the minister.

Passenger traffic at the Milas-Bodrum airport in the Aegean province of Muğla, however, saw only a 2 percent increase in international passenger traffic to 905,000.