Ankara Airport – a case study in the need for a third runway at a medium sized airport

Outside the US, third runways usually (not always) come along when airport passenger traffic exceeds 50mppa, although the planning for them needs to start a decade or so in advance, as there are always likely to be entrenched objections. Some airports handle much more than that on two runways - usually because they have to, for one reason or another.

In 2025 Ankara's Esenboğa Airport handled just less than 14 million passengers. Ankara is Türkiye's capital, but the busiest airport by far (and second busiest in Europe) is Istanbul, owing to its economy, trade links, tourist appeal and transfer status.

The count of 14 million mppa is only a third of what London Gatwick airport handles on one runway.

Nevertheless, for many different reasons the owner, the state agent DHMI, and the operator, TAV Airports, decided to construct a third runway, and it is now up and running; a giant of a thing.

This report looks into those reasons and offers a little insight into why passenger traffic and cargo volume forecasting can be one of the most demanding tasks in the air transport business.

In this case, EUR300 million of loaned money rests on its accuracy.