Further details have emerged about the consortium that won the bid to develop and manage Istanbul’s second major airport.
India’s GMR Infrastructure – which teamed up with Malaysia Airports and Turkey’s Limak on the winning bid - says it and Limak each have a 40% stake in the consortium and Malaysia Airports has the remaining 20% stake.
The consortium has a 20-year concession to develop and manage Istanbul’s second major gateway, Sabiha Gokcen International Airport.
GMR says the consortium bid €1.93 billion ($2.6 billion) for the concession and the consortium has agreed to build a new international terminal, with passenger capacity of 10 million, and have it completed within 30 months of the concession starting.
The airport currently has one domestic and one international terminal and the existing international terminal is to be converted into a domestic terminal, it says.
According to GMR the current terminals combined have capacity of 3.5 million passengers and passenger traffic in 2006 topped 3 million.
“Sabiha Gokcen International Airport (SGA) is emerging as a second airport in Istanbul” as the city’s other airport, Istanbul Ataturk airport, is constrained, says GMR.
“SGA is located a similar distance from the centre of Istanbul” as the other airport “and is strategically placed in the midst of Turkey’s most important industrial zone”.
It adds: “SGA is expected to witness a significant growth in traffic as Istanbul is among the fastest growing destinations in the world.”
Malaysia Airports says in a separate statement that the consortium will be investing €150 to €180 million into the airport, excluding financing and “project controlling costs”.
Malaysia Airports is Malaysia’s national airports operator and it is already a joint venture partner of GMR Infrastructure because the two manage Delhi airport in India and are helping to build the new Hyderabad airport.
GMR Infrastructure is an Indian airport developer and Limak is a Turkish construction company.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
Source: FlightGlobal.com