Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen International is more than a secondary facility – breaks passenger record

Istanbul's Sabiha Gökçen International Airport (SAW) grew strongly and consistently from when it opened as a reliever airport in 2002 right through to 2020, and to the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic - and at a rate most other airports could only aspire to.

Not only that, it renewed that growth dynamic in 2021, and in 2023 it broke its own passenger record, with over 37 million of them.

It isn't likely to stop there either, with a second runway having come on stream in Dec-2023, opening the possibility of long haul flights (which it is still painfully short of, and which need not be the preserve of the bigger Istanbul Airport).

A new service from Kuala Lumpur is scheduled for 10-Feb-2024, and British Airways launched a London service in 2023, thereby becoming the only western European full service carrier to operate at SAW.

Others are now likely at least to take a look at what SAW has to offer, and the high ratio of low cost capacity there should begin to fall.

There remain several issues that have to be dealt with, the most pressing of them being the need for more terminal space, but SAW seems to be on track to become one of the world's leading examples of how a secondary-level airport for a city should function.