Deal to be signed today for 3rd airport of Istanbul

ANKARA - Anatolia News Agency

A contract for Istanbul’s third airport project will be inked today, setting the ball rolling for the biggest-ever project of its kind in Turkish history.The contract is slated to be signed in Ankara today, when the 80th anniversary of the General Directorate of State Airports Authority of Turkey (DHİM) is celebrated.The Cengiz-Kolin-Limak-Mapa-Kalyon Consortium, a joint venture of Turkish companies, won a tender for the third airport in Istanbul on May 3, promising to pay the state 22.1 billion euros (plus taxes) for 25 years starting from 2017.The tender for the build-operate-transfer project, which is to be conducted in four stages, will be for a 25-year lease, with the cooperation of the private and public sectors. The state will guarantee the amount of passengers and tariff levels for a certain amount of time.The first phase of construction is set to be completed 42 months after the tender contact is signed, then providing an initial capacity of 90 million passengers annually.Once all six of the planned runways are complete, the capacity is expected to increase to 150 million passengers, one of the world’s largest in terms of the passenger capacity at full capacity.The third airport of Istanbul is expected to provide jobs for 100,000 people, Turkish Transport Minister Binali Yıldırım previously said. More than 5,000 people will work to construct the airport, whose construction is slated to cost over 10 billion euros. A total of six runways, 16 taxiways, 88 passenger bridges, 165 aircraft passenger bridges at all terminals and a 6.5 million-square-meter apron with capacity for 500 aircraft, among other facilities, will also be constructed.The new airport is slated to be constructed on Istanbul’s European side between the Black Sea regions of Yeniköy and Akpınar, on an area of 7,659 hectares. Some 6,172 hectares of this area is forested land, raising anger among environmentalists about the ecological footprint of the third airport project.