Istanbul Airport is strengthening its position as a global transfer hub. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan opened the airport's fourth main runway on Sept. 18, and a German aviation industry study published in early October found that travellers from Germany are increasingly routing long-haul trips through Istanbul rather than Frankfurt or Munich.
The new concrete runway is 2,820 metres long and 45 metres wide and cost 890 million euros, Hürriyet Daily News reported. Istanbul Airport now has six runways in total. The investment is intended to cut taxiing and holding times, improve take-off and landing safety and reduce fuel burn and emissions.
Erdoğan said activities linked to the airport account for about 2.2% of Türkiye's gross domestic product, or $24.2 billion, and projected that it will support 472,000 jobs and $44 billion in revenue by 2030.
Germans connect via Istanbul and the Gulf
A joint report by the German Aviation Industry Association (BDL) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), released on Oct. 5, found that transfers through non-EU hubs made up 54% of passenger traffic from Germany to the Far East and Southeast Asia in 2024, up from 43.8% in 2019 and 33.7% in 2010.
Connections through Türkiye and the Gulf more than doubled, from 12.6% in 2010 to 28.2% in 2024, the biggest gain of any category. Over the same period, direct flights and transfers via German hubs fell from 56% to 36% of the market. The report named Turkish Airlines and Istanbul's new airport, alongside Dubai and Doha, as key drivers, citing lower fares and wider connection options. It linked the shift partly to higher European climate charges and rising aviation costs in Germany.
What travellers gain
The study noted that hubs such as Istanbul can take passengers as far as Australia with one stop, compared with two connections via Western Europe. More runway capacity should, in principle, mean fewer delays at a hub that handled 56.6 million passengers in the first eight months of 2026, according to state airport authority data.
Transit passengers with longer layovers can also leave the airport: Turkish Airlines offers free Touristanbul city tours to eligible connecting passengers on layovers of six to 24 hours.
Sources
- Erdoğan hails Istanbul Airport as global aviation leader – Hürriyet Daily News
- German air travelers favor Istanbul over Frankfurt on flights to Asia, Africa – Hürriyet Daily News
- Türkiye's airports handle 167.5M passengers in first 8 months of 2026 – Türkiye Today
Photo: Sharon Hahn Darlin / CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
