[AMcWhirter]

Some of you may already have seen the news piece we posted on October 5.

Operations at new Istanbul airport to be delayed by two months

There is still no official confirmation from either Turkish Airlines or the government as to when the airport will fully open.

It is expected there will be a soft opening on October 29. From October 31 the intention is to operate a very few B737 flights on four domestic routes plus Baku.

It means that almost all Istanbul air services will continue to use the existing IST airport for at least two months.

We understand that aircraft will be moved between the existing airport (IATA code IST) and the new airport (IATA code ISL) between December 29 and December 31.

There will clearly be a lot of flight amendments/cancellations and general confusion during the above period.

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GivingupBA

[EU_Flyer]

Thanks for the update!

Turkish are still selling their normal schedule for 29 Dec (I happen to be flying with them that day within Europe and into early hours of 30 Dec). Should be interesting to see it all from a passenger’s perspective, including cancellations/ rerouting and the chaos of Ataturk at that time. Once in a lifetime experience.

Clearly a sucker for punishment.

1 user thanked author for this post.

AMcWhirter

[AMcWhirter]

Turkish Airlines has now confirmed that it will operate those few flights (see above posting) from ISL (the new airport) until December 30.

It says “We will continue carry out our main operations and existing schedules without change at IST (the existing airport).

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RichardBarr

[canucklad]

When Kai Tak shut, didn’t they move in a very short window ?
I seem to recall the airport shut forever at midnight and Chep Lok opened at 6.00am ?

[AMcWhirter]

[quote quote=897668]When Kai Tak shut, didn’t they move in a very short window ?
I seem to recall the airport shut forever at midnight and Chep Lok opened at 6.00am ?[/quote]

It was the same with Munich in 1992. Lufthansa produced a film showing all its equipment moving overnight from Riem (the old airport close to downtown) to the new airport further out.

[GivingupBA]

[quote quote=897668]When Kai Tak shut, didn’t they move in a very short window ?

I seem to recall the airport shut forever at midnight and Chep Lok opened at 6.00am ?[/quote]

That’s right. I was living right under the Chek Lap Kok flightpath at the time and there were all the repositioning flights going over all through the night – just heard them though they were high enough to not bother us much. CLK was open the next day [for the dawn arrival from JFK if I recall correctly] although it had considerable teething problems with air freight if I recall correctly.

[AMcWhirter]

The National UAE has published pictures of the new airport. No mention of the two month delay (before it’s fully ready).

https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/inside-istanbul-s-giant-12-billion-airport-in-pictures-1.780769

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