Giant new Istanbul airport 85 percent done

Istanbul : Istanbul’s giant new airport, which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hopes will make the city a global air traffic hub, is 85 percent finished and will open on time this year, the transport minister said Friday.

Much of the airport still resembles a construction site with skeletal unfinished buildings still in evidence but Turkey is confident that the building is on schedule.

Trucks and bulldozers still criss cross the site of the $10 billion project, leaving waves of dust in their wake, said an AFP correspondent who was given a rare glimpse on a tour for foreign journalists.

“The airport will open on October 29. The completion rate by the end of March was at around 85 percent,” Transport Minister Ahmet Arslan told reporters at the airport.

Arslan said that at 67.6 million square metres the airport would be the largest by size in the world.

There have been major concerns over reports of a high fatality rate at the airport’s construction site.

Arslan emphasised there were some 35,000 people working there and over the course of construction 13 workers had died due to work related accidents and 14 for reasons not related to work.