Istanbul Airport

Profile

Istanbul Airport (IST) replaced Atatürk (ISL) as Istanbul's primary international gateway in 2019 and has since grown into one of the world's busiest international airports. Turkish Airlines uses IST as its super-hub, connecting Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia, and the Americas through the Türkiye-centric geographic position.

Unlike Western European hubs, IST retained Russian airspace access post-February 2022, creating a unique advantage for Istanbul–East Asia and Istanbul–Russia-onward routings.

Operational Context

LTAA FIR (Ankara) covers Turkish airspace. Central position near GPS spoofing zones (Eastern Mediterranean) creates intermittent navigation integrity advisories; LTAA-wide GNSS degradation events have been reported since 2023. IST's own operations are unaffected at the airport level.