Sabiha Gökçen International Airport

Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen International Airport is an international airport serving Istanbul, Turkey. Located 32 km southeast of the city center, Sabiha Gökçen Airport is in the Asian part of the transcontinental city and serves as the hub for AJet and Pegasus Airlines.

The airport is named after Sabiha Gökçen, adoptive daughter of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and the first female fighter pilot in the world. Although Istanbul Airport, located 63 km west of the European side of Istanbul, is larger, Sabiha Gökçen is still one of the largest airports in the country one of the busiest airports in the Middle East.

Foundation
The airport was built because Atatürk Airport (located on the European side) was not large enough to meet the booming passenger demands (both domestic and international). The airport opened on 8 January 2001. In June 2007, Turkish conglomerate Limak Holding, India's GMR Group and Malaysia Airport Holding Berhad (MAHB) consortium gained the contract for upgrading and maintaining the airport. In mid-2008, ground was broken to upgrade the international terminal to handle 25 million passengers annually. The new terminal was inaugurated on 31 October 2009.

SAW's international terminal capacity originally was 3 million passengers per year and the domestic terminal capacity was 0.5 million passengers per year. In 2010, Sabiha Gökçen airport handled 11,129,472 passengers, a 71% increase compared to 2009. The airport was planning (in 2011) to host 25 million passengers by 2023, but has already received and handled more than 35 million passengers by 2019.

Expansion
In September 2010, the airport was voted the World's Best Airport at the World Low Cost Airlines Congress in London and received the award. The other awards received by the airport in 2010 were: Turkey's Most Successful Tourism Investment 2010, the highly commended award from Routes Europe, and the Airport Traffic Growth Award by Airline News & Network Analysis.

A second runway was inaugurated on 25 December 2023. The addition of this runway will increase the hourly capacity from 40 to 80 aircraft movements, making the airport hope for double the capacity. It is also planned to build new passenger terminals between the two runways.

Terminal
The new terminal building with a 25 million annual passenger capacity serves domestic and international flights under one roof. It is equipped with 112 check-in, 24 online check-in counters as well as a VIP building and apron viewing CIP halls with business lounges. The terminal additionally features a 400 m2 conference center, a 5000 m2 food court and a duty-free shopping area with a ground of 4500 m2. At the international departures area, on the airside, an hourly hotel and lounge became operational in January 2020 as well.

Other facilities
The features and services of the new terminal and its outlying buildings include a four-storey car park with a capacity of about 4,718 vehicles + 72 bus (3.836 indoors and 882 + 72 bus outdoors), a four-storey hotel with 128 rooms adjacent to the terminal. There is also a Multi Aircraft Ramp System (MARS), allowing simultaneous service to 8 aircraft with large fuselages (IATA code E) or 16 middle-sized fuselage aircraft (IATA code C) installed. The airport's cargo terminal has a capacity of 90,000 tons per year and is equipped with 18 cold storage depots.

Passenger
The following airlines operate regular scheduled and charter flights to and from Sabiha Gökçen International Airport:

Ground transport
Sabiha Gökçen International Airport is connected to the city of Istanbul and the city's wider metropolitan area through a number of transport options.

Rail
The airport is located 14 km from the Pendik railway station and sea-taxi stations. M10, a metro connection to Marmaray and  Yüksek Hızlı Tren via the Pendik station is currently being built.

Metro
The M4 metro line has been extended to the airport.

Road
The airport is reachable by car and taxi from the European motorway which passes through the Istanbul Metropolitan Area. Shuttlebus companies such as Havaist along with express public buses E10 and E11 operated by İETT serve Taksim and Kadıköy and there are coaches to nearby towns and cities.

Accidents and incidents

 * On 23 December 2015, at approximately 2:00 AM, explosions were reported to have occurred in a parked Pegasus Airlines aircraft, killing one cleaner and wounding another inside the plane. Five nearby planes were reported to be damaged as well. The operations were reported to continue normally soon after, however with heightened security measures in place. Three days later, it was reported that militant group Kurdistan Freedom Falcons had organized the attack.
 * On 7 January 2020, a plane operated as Pegasus Airlines flight 747, a Boeing 737-800, suffered a runway excursion after landing. Passengers evacuated the aircraft using slides. No fatalities or injuries occurred.
 * On 5 February 2020, a Boeing 737-800, registration TC-IZK, operated as Pegasus Airlines Flight 2193, skidded off the end of Runway 06, leading to an airport shutdown. There were 177 passengers and 6 crew on board. Three people were killed, another 179 were injured.