Türkiye’s largest and one of the biggest airports in the world, Istanbul Airport has served more than 160 million passengers since it opened four years ago, Transport and Infrastructure Minister Adil Karaismailoğlu said on Sunday.

The gleaming glass-and-steel structure along the Black Sea coast has managed to turn into one of the most important transit centers in aviation since it was officially declared open in late October 2018, before becoming fully operational in April 2019.

It reflected the emergence of Istanbul, Europe’s largest city straddling Europe and Asia, as a major regional transport hub.

More than 1.1 million airplanes landed and took off from the airport in the four years, carrying more than 160.27 million passengers, Karaismailoğlu said in a statement.

The minister said Istanbul Airport surpassed its peers in the world both in the number of passengers and flights in a short time.

“Istanbul Airport continues its strong trend that it has achieved with normalization after COVID-19. Istanbul Airport has taken its place among the most important transit centers in the world and has rapidly become the busiest airport in Europe,” he noted.

Istanbul Airport can handle 90 million passengers a year in the current phase, which, while it is a high figure, is nothing compared to its potential capacity to serve 200 million after the completion of all phases, making it the world’s largest.

All four phases of the airport’s construction and expansion, including six runways, are expected to be completed by 2028.

According to the Airports Council International Europe (ACI Europe), Karaismailoğlu said Istanbul Airport served nearly 20 million passengers in the third quarter of this year, making it the busiest airport in Europe.

It has served some 47.57 million passengers from January through September this year, the minister said.

The airport handled nearly 37 million passengers last year despite disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic, according to data compiled from ACI Europe, making it Europe’s busiest for the second year running.

It first grabbed the title of Europe’s busiest airport in 2020 – just a year after it opened – thanks to Türkiye’s decision to allow travelers to freely enter the country in a bid to boost tourism revenues. It served around 23.4 million passengers in 2020.