ANKARA
Turkish Transportation, Maritime Affairs and Communications Minister Binali Yildirim said on Wednesday "We aim to finish preparations for the construction of Istanbul's third airport by the end of 2013."
Yildirim said they would try to finish works on the land such as nationalizing all the properties by the end of the year or early next year in order to allow the contractors to start the actual construction.
Yildirim told the Anadolu Agency that their goal is to build airports every 100 kms by 2023 across Turkey and that people will be able to travel to airports in an hour.
He also said airports in Turkey's north east provinces of Ordu and Giresun and in the south east province of Hakkari would be opened soon.
He noted that airlines have carried 165 million passengers in Turkey in the past ten years and and they aim at reaching 350 million passengers by 2023.
"Turkey's airports now have the capacity to handle 200 million passengers annually. When the third airport is completed in Istanbul this figure will rise to 375 million passengers," he added.
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