Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu officially opened Europe's first airport on an artificial island on May 22. The airport is opened as a morning Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul carrying 136 passengers touched down on its runway.
The new airport, off the coast of the Black Sea provinces of Ordu and Giresun cost around 360 million Turkish liras ($132.6 million).
Around 35 million tons of rocks were used to fill a 1.8-million-square-meter area of the sea.
The airport’s runway is 3,000 meters long and 45 meters wide.
Although only serving Istanbul and Ankara flights at the moment, the airport has plans to expand to 42 destinations.
The number of tourists and investors in the Black Sea region is expected to increase with the opening of the new airport.
“We expect that there will be a huge increase in the flow of tourists… Arab investors bought over 100 residences in Ordu, especially in the districts of Akkuş, Ünye, Fatsa and Kabadüz,” said Ordu Governor Irfan Balkanlıoglu.
Source: AA
Source: AA
