Govt confirms plans for third Istanbul airport

Transportation and Communication Minister Binali Yildirim yesterday confirmed that a third airport is scheduled to be built on the European side of Istanbul, the Anatolia News Agency reported. "The new airport will serve an annual capacity of 60 million passengers and have two separate tarmacs," Yildirim told Anatolia, adding that it would be a build-operate-transfer (BOT) project, a business model that gives building contractors the right to manage new facilities for a certain amount of time before transferring operations to the government. "This will be among the most prominent airports in Europe and will ease Istanbul's air traffic congestion," he added.