Istanbul New Airport Delayed Opening Until March 2019

In a sudden but not unexpected move, the opening of Istanbul New Airport has been delayed yet again. According to Turkish news agency T24, the airport, which was most recently supposed to open at the end of December 2018, will now open in March 2019.

The decision to postpone the airport opening was made at a meeting on Tuesday with Turkey's Minter of Transport and Infrastructure. Also present were airport officials. All of whom chose to delay the opening until March — a decision that took about two hours.

Istanbul New Airport is open at this time, though with only a few domestic and regional routes that have been operating since its October 2018 soft launch. On Dec. 30, 2018, the new airport, which is currently operating under the IATA code "ISL," was supposed to take over all Istanbul operations, and the "IST" code from Istanbul Ataturk Airport.

The airport's soft opening came after just 42 months of construction, however, as of October, there was still plenty of construction ongoing.

All images by the author.