Fraport, one of the leading players in the global airport business, celebrated its 20th year in the Turkey market with an event held at the Çırağan Palace.

The added value provided to Antalya over 20 years as well as the benefits offered to the region and to the economy of the city were discussed over the “Economic Impact Analysis”. The event hosted by Fraport Turkey`s Managing Director Bilgihan Yılmaz started with an opening speech from Fraport AG CEO Dr. Stefan Schulte. In his presentation on Fraport, an international airport operator and foreign investor, Schulte spoke of the progress that Antalya Airport has achieved in 20 years illustrated with impressive figures.

Fraport Turkey`s Managing Director Bilgihan Yılmaz gave a presentation on the “Antalya Airport Economic Impact Assessment Analysis”. He stated that 99.7% of the tourists coming to Antalya, which has become the Mediterranean`s largest tourism center within 20 years, prefer airway transportation. Considering that 58% of the tourists all over the world and 76.1% across Turkey prefer airway, he mentioned almost all tourists coming to Antalya prefer airway transportation and this is a unique opportunity.

During the event, Jens Bischof, CEO of Sunexpress, Osman Ayık, Chairman of TÜROFED, Ersel Göral, CEO of Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen Airport and Holger Schaefers, Senior Vice President of Fraport AG evaluated the developments in tourism and the aviation sector.

What were the achievements in the last 20 years?

Fraport operates in 30 airports in 4 continents and 11 countries. The total value of assets it manages today is over €8.3 billion and has a terminal area of 2.5 million square meters. Its international portfolio makes Fraport the world`s number 1 airport operator.

Fraport took over the operation of Antalya Airport in 1999 and has hosted 373 million passengers and 2.4 million flights in 20 years. 306 million of these passengers were international and 67 million were domestic. In 20 years, 1.8 million international and 600 thousand domestic flights were performed to/from Antalya.

While indirect employment figures in 1999 were around 25 thousand, this figure increased by 387% to 122 thousand as of 2018. By 2024, it is expected to rise to nearly 193 thousand. In 20 years, Fraport`s contribution to household income has increased year over year. The revenue achieved in 1999 was US$ 155 million and it rose to US$ 762 million in 2018. While the effect of Fraport on Gross Domestic Product was US$ 878 million in 1999, this figure increased to US$ 4.140 billion in 2018. The 0.24% contribution to GDP in 1999 rose to 0.53% in 2018.

In 1999, Antalya Airport had a terminal of 10 gates on an area of 60 thousand square meters. Antalya Airport served with the terminal having a total of 60 counters, 12 boarding bridges and 6 luggage bands, and had a car parking capacity of 40 thousand square meters at that time. Today, there are 39 gates, 28 boarding bridges and 170 counters at the airport with 3 terminals on an area of 180 thousand square meters. Now Antalya Airport has a car parking capacity of 100 thousand square meters and has 16 luggage bands.

Having ranked 28th in Europe in 2003, Antalya Airport is now in 13th place. At the end of the 1990s, Antalya had very limited flight destinations, whereas today there are 254 international flights to 60 countries with 118 airlines.

In 1999, Antalya ranked 8th amongst the Mediterranean airports with 5 million passengers and today is the leader of the region with 32 million passengers on an annual basis. Having reached the total number of passengers of the full year of 1999 by the month of August 2018, it was a significant record-breaking success. When the figures of the first 9 months of 2019 are examined, a 17% increase was achieved compared to the same period of the previous year, which increased expectations of a new record-breaking success for 2019.

In 2018, the top five countries operating flights to Antalya Airport were: Russia (4.5 million passengers), Turkey (3.7 million passengers), Germany (2.77 million passengers), Ukraine (729 thousand passengers) and the U.K. (655 thousand passengers).

Antalya has 15% of all airline passengers of Turkey and ranked 3rd in this field. Having 7% of domestic passengers in Turkey, Antalya ranked 5th and with 25% of international flight passengers, it ranked 2nd. With 12% of the total flights in Turkey, it ranked 3rd.

Antalya Airport has invested more than €450 million up until today and Fraport completed the construction of all terminals between 1996 and 2009 with the Build-Operate-Transfer model. Fraport was the successful bidder in the tender worth EUR 2.1 billion covering the period of 2007-2024 and pays a rent of €300 thousand per day for Antalya Airport