X

Turkey is planning to connect Istanbul and Sabiha Gökçen airports via a high-speed train line

  • 19 January 2023

Istanbul, Turkey – In a press conference held on Wednesday, the country's Transport and Infrastructure Minister, Adil Karaismailoğlu, announced that Turkey is looking to connect a high-speed train line between Istanbul and Ankara to the two airports in the metropolis. The project, which aims to connect Sabiha Gökçen Airport on the Anatolian side and Istanbul Airport on the European side of the city, is nearing the tender stage.

According to the minister, the Ankara-Istanbul high-speed train line will begin in the Gebze district of the northwestern Kocaeli province, cross the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, and make a stop at Sabiha Gökçen Airport before reaching Istanbul Airport. From there, the train line will continue on to Europe, connecting Istanbul Airport to the high-speed train network.

The link promises to add to an already vast transportation network in Istanbul, Europe's largest city straddling Europe and Asia, and further boost passenger and cargo mobility, which is likely to mobilize greater and faster links with Europe. This move is expected to be a major boost for the real estate market in the area, as more connectivity will attract more investors and buyers to the area.

While the minister did not provide any details about the timeline of the tender for the project, he did mention that the link will feature another first, given the fact that it will mark the first time a domestically developed signalization system is used in a railway line. "The subject of signaling has been a business monopolized by five or six companies in the world... And when there was an additional need, we were faced with their arbitrary fees," he noted. Cooperation with Aselsan, one of Turkey's most prominent communication system developers, will enable the use of domestic and national signaling for the first time, he said.

"From now on, we will use it on all metro lines. The railway vehicles here are produced in Ankara with 60% of parts manufactured domestically. This is also an important gain. This is also one of the longest subways in the world with a length of 34 kilometers," Karaismailoğlu noted.

The public is also due to witness the launch of a 34-kilometer (21-mile) metro link that will mark the first railway connection with Turkey's largest and one of the biggest airports in the world, Istanbul Airport. The line from the Kağıthane neighborhood will run through the Eyüpsultan and Arnavutköy districts before reaching Istanbul Airport, which was officially declared open in late October 2018, before becoming fully operational in April 2019. The line will feature eight stations and is expected to serve about 800,000 passengers a day after opening on Sunday in a ceremony to be attended by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

The metro will in the coming period be integrated into the Mecidiyeköy-Mahmutbey line, which will enable the airport's connection to almost all of the most important transport links in Istanbul. "Istanbul Airport is the busiest airport in Europe, the largest in the world and the airport described by passengers as the best in the world. It is the most important global transfer center not only for our country but also for our region. Access to Istanbul Airport means access to world trade and world tourism," Karaismailoğlu said Monday.

"Thanks to the metro's integration into the Mecidiyeköy-Mahmutbey line, it will be possible to reach it (Istanbul Airport) directly, safely, quickly and economically with all rail systems," he noted.

Sabiha Gökçen Airport is set to get its second runway soon.