"The beginning of a new era of air transport." In Istanbul something never before seen in Europe
Turkish Airlines' press office, perhaps with an overemphasis, called it "the beginning of a new era of [...]
Turkish Airlines
Star Alliance
IST
Turkey
The Turkish Airlines press office, perhaps with an overemphasis, called it "the beginning of a new era of air transport in Europe."
In this article:
Perhaps it is, but the fact remains that what went on. The morning of April 17 at Istanbul airport. had never happened before in Europe: three planes, a Boeing 777-200F, an Airbus A321neo and an Airbus A350-900 took off simultaneously from three different runways at the Turkish airport, initiating what are termed 'Simultaneous operations' on three tracks.
At no airport in the Old Continent is such a thing possible today. This happens not because there are no airports with three or more runways (Rome Fiumicino, Madrid, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Paris CDG come to mind), but because three planes can operate simultaneously on as many runways only if those three runways are aligned in a certain way and only if they have a minimum distance of 760 meters for takeoffs and 1,035 meters for landings.
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In Istanbul, this is made possible by the positioning of the three runways 34L/16R, 35R/17L and 36/18, all parallel and each more than a thousand meters from the one next to it.
All this can be spectacular for airplane spotters, but more importantly for the airport, allows for an increase in the hourly movements (takeoffs and landings) guaranteed by the runways, which in the case of Istanbul has grown from the previous 120 to the current 148.
Increase that will be no small factor in the airport's further increase in traffic, which will already in 2024, with 79,988,272 passengers, it was the second busiest in Europe behind London Heathrow and the eighth on a global scale. Opened in October 2018 32km from downtown, in April 2019 it took over all flights operated at the old Ataturk airport, which was then closed.
Its main terminal, which has an area of 1,400,000sq. ft, Is the third largest airport terminal in the world. At present, its capacity is 90 million passengers per year. But the project is far from finished, as by the end of 2027 the airport will have two more terminals with a total capacity of about 60 million passengers and two more runways for a total of five.
