Passenger traffic of Turkey’s airports up 9.5 pct in March

ANKARA - Anadolu Agency

The number of passengers taking domestic flights in Turkey grew 9.5 percent in March year-on-year, the General Directorate of the State Airports Authority said in a statement on April 8.

The number on international flights grew 9.3 percent compared with the same month a year ago.
The total number of domestic passengers for the month was 7.1 million and the number of international passengers reached 4.8 million, the authority said.

The number of domestic flights increased 5.7 percent, to more than 62,234, while the number of international flights grew 8.4 percent, to more than 39,781.

Turkish airports served nearly 130,000 planes, an increase of 9.4 percent compared with 117,526 planes in March 2014, including the number of over-flights.

Among the busiest airports in Turkey, Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport remains in the top spot with 4.7 million passengers.

Sabiha Gökçen Airport, Istanbul’s main air hub on the Asian side of the city, became second with 2 million passengers. Istanbul’s airports were used by 56 percent of all domestic and international flight passengers (12 million) in March.

The total number of passengers in all airports increased 7.6 percent, to more than 33 million in the first three months of the year.