Turkey is looking to connect a high-speed train line between Istanbul and Ankara to the two airports in the metropolis, the country’s transport and infrastructure minister announced Wednesday.

The project that will link the railway line to Sabiha Gökçen Airport on the Anatolian side and Istanbul Airport on the European side of the city is nearing the tender stage, Adil Karaismailoğlu told reporters.

The Ankara-Istanbul high-speed train line will leave the Gebze district of north-western Kocaeli province, cross the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge and stop at Sabiha Gökçen Airport before reaching Istanbul Airport.

“It will reach Istanbul Airport and continue to Europe from there. We will connect our Istanbul Airport with our high-speed train network,” the minister noted.

Karaismailoğlu did not provide any details about the timeline of the tender for the project.

The link promises to add to an already vast transportation network in Istanbul, Europe’s largest city straddling Europe and Asia, and further boost passenger and cargo mobility, which is likely to mobilize greater and faster links with Europe.

Meanwhile, the public is due to witness a launch of a 34-kilometer (21-mile) metro link that will mark the first railway connection with Turkey’s largest and one of the biggest airports in the world.

The line from the Kağıthane neighbourhood will run through the Eyüpsultan and Arnavutköy districts before reaching Istanbul Airport, which was officially declared open in late October 2018, before becoming fully operational in April 2019.

The line will feature eight stations and is expected to serve about 800,000 passengers a day after opening on Sunday in a ceremony to be attended by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Domestically developed signalization

The link will also feature another first, given the fact that it will mark the first time a domestically developed signalization system is used in a railway line, Karaismailoğlu said.

“The subject of signalling has been a business monopolized by five or six companies in the world… And when there was an additional need, we were faced with their arbitrary fees,” he noted.

Cooperation with Aselsan, one of Turkey’s most prominent communication system developers, will enable the use of domestic and national signalling for the first time, he said.

“From now on, we will use it on all metro lines. The railway vehicles here are produced in Ankara with 60% of parts manufactured domestically. This is also an important gain. This is also one of the longest subways in the world with a length of 34 kilometres,” Karaismailoğlu noted.

“I hope it will serve as the fastest metro in Turkey to the best airport in the world.”

The metro will in the coming period be integrated into the Mecidiyeköy-Mahmutbey line, which will enable the airport’s connection to almost all of the most important transport links in Istanbul.

“Istanbul Airport is the busiest airport in Europe, the largest in the world and the airport described by passengers as the best in the world. It is the most important global transfer center not only for our country but also for our region. Access to Istanbul Airport means access to world trade and world tourism,” Karaismailoğlu said Monday.

“Thanks to the metro’s integration into the Mecidiyeköy-Mahmutbey line, it will be possible to reach it (Istanbul Airport) directly, safely, quickly and economically with all rail systems,” he noted.

Sabiha Gökçen to get 2nd runway soon

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 opened.

It reflected the emergence of Istanbul as a major regional transport hub.

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.

Istanbul Airport was named the busiest airport in Europe for 2022 with an average of 1,156 flights per day, according to the report of the European Air Navigation Safety Organization (Euro control).

The number of passengers served at Istanbul and Sabiha Gökçen airports in 2022 rose 53% year-over-year to 95 million, according to data from Turkey’s General Directorate of State Airports Authority (DHMİ).

The number of flights operated at the two facilities increased by more than 30% versus a year ago to 654,044, the data showed.

Passengers at Istanbul Airport hit 64.5 million last year, an increase of 73% from 2021, hit by the fallout of the coronavirus outbreak.

The number of passengers at Sabiha Gökçen rose to 30.8 million in 2022, up from 24.9 million in 2021, the data showed.

Meanwhile, Karaismailoğlu said works that are ongoing on the second runway at Sabiha Gökçen are expected to be completed soon.

“We aimed to finish it at the beginning of May, our work continues in that direction. We will finish the second runway in May,” the minister noted.

“Both Istanbul and Sabiha Gökçen Airport will grow. These are the projects that connect Turkey to the world.”