ISTANBUL (Turkiye), Aug 20 — Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah today visited Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport (ISGIA), here which is owned and operated by Malaysia Airport Holdings Bhd (MAHB).
Upon arrival, His Majesty was briefed on ISGIA’s operations and growth potential by MAHB Chairman Datuk Seri Dr Zambry Abd Kadir and Managing Director Datuk Iskandar Mizal.
The king later toured the airport’s passenger terminal which is the sixth busiest entry point in Europe.
The airport, which began operations in 2008, has become one of the landmarks of Malaysia-Turkiye economic relations.
In 2021, the number of passengers at the airport reached 25 million people which is 70 per cent of the pre-pandemic statistic of COVID-19.
ISGIA was also ranked as Europe’s second fastest recovering airport last year.
MAHB has invested about 500 million Euros in the Sabiha airport project and is looking at more such projects in the country.
ISGIA is the second largest airport in Turkiye as well as the busiest single runway in the world with flights to 110 destinations in 49 countries.
In 2021, ISGIA emerged as the first airport in the world to use an innovative remote control system to operate the bridge for passengers departure facilities and enable related processes to be carried out with the use of high-precision cameras and detectors.
Al-Sultan Abdullah also visited the mosque located in ISGIA which was built and supervised by MAHB.
The king was accompanied by Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz, Foreign Affairs Ministry Secretary-General Datuk Seri Amran Mohamed Zin and Malaysian Ambassador to Turkiye Salim Mustafa Kamal.
