Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen International Airport

Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen International is the Asian-side gateway to Istanbul and the world's busiest single-runway-operation airport for most of the period before its second runway opened in 2023. SAW serves 166 direct destinations across 26 airlines — an unusually concentrated carrier roster reflecting the airport's identity as the dominant low-cost operation in Turkey, anchored by Pegasus Airlines as its principal tenant. Pegasus operates its only hub at SAW with 100+ aircraft, competing directly with Turkish Airlines' full-service IST operation across the Bosphorus. AnadoluJet (Turkish Airlines' low-cost subsidiary), SunExpress, easyJet, and Wizz Air maintain significant bases or focus-city operations, making SAW the largest low-cost airport in Turkey and one of the largest LCC bases in the broader Middle East. The passenger profile skews toward leisure traffic to Mediterranean and Western European destinations, domestic Turkish cities, and an increasingly dense network serving Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Gulf. Two runways, 11,614 ft (3,540 m) and 9,843 ft (3,000 m), now allow simultaneous operations following the 2023 second-runway commissioning. SAW sits at 312 ft (95 m) elevation in Pendik on Istanbul's Asian side, 32 km southeast of Sultanahmet and roughly 50 km from the Istanbul Airport (IST) on the European side — a positional advantage that makes SAW the natural choice for travelers based in Kadıköy, Üsküdar, and the broader Anatolian suburbs. A single terminal building handles all commercial operations with an international and domestic split, and a second terminal is under design to lift capacity past 40M annually. The airport is named after Sabiha Gökçen, the world's first female combat pilot and an adopted daughter of Atatürk.