Turkish airports serve 196M air passengers in Jan-Nov

ANKARA

Nearly 196 million passengers traveled through airports in Turkey in the first 11 months of this year, the country’s airport authority announced on Friday.

The January-November figure was down slightly from some 197 million passengers in the same period last year on both domestic and international flights, the General Directorate of State Airports Authority (DHMI) said in a statement.

The number of international passengers surged 11.4% year-on-year to 102.5 million from January to November, while domestic passenger numbers slipped 11.5% to 92.8 million.

Turkish airports served 1.9 million planes including overflights, marginally up from the same period last year.

The report also said cargo traffic reached 3.2 million tons in the first 11 months of this year.

The new Istanbul Airport -- whose first phase officially opened last October and took over air traffic from Ataturk Airport on April 6 -- welcomed 47.3 million passengers on both international and domestic routes and served over 295,000 planes.