Malaysian Prime Minister Visits Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen Airport

Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Bin Yaakob visited the Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen Airport (ISG), according to a statement by the facility on Wednesday.

Yaakob arrived at the airport on Tuesday to commence his four-day visit to Türkiye upon the invitation of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The prime minister is expected to explore bilateral commodity trading opportunities as both countries aim to strengthen economic ties.

As members to the United Nations, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the D-8, Türkiye and Malaysia share a common perspective on a broad range of regional and global issues, the statement added.

It recalled that the two countries signed a free trade agreement (FTA) in April, which was the first ever FTA that Türkiye concluded with an Association of Southeast Asian Nations member.

Türkiye is one of the main trading partners of Malaysia.

"The prime minister is expected to visit the Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation and Turkish Aerospace Inc. to strengthen cooperation through the sharing of technology after his meeting with President Erdogan in Ankara on Thursday," the statement further added.

The prime minister's visit began with a tour of the airport, which is owned and managed by Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB).

With an annual capacity of up to 41 million passengers, the ISG Airport is the world's busiest single runway and single terminal airport located on the Asian side of Istanbul, which is the third most visited city in Europe.

"With 13,000 square-meter duty free and food and beverage area, 128-room airport hotel and 4,800-lot car park, ISG caters to more than 22 million people who reside within two hours from the airport," the statement said.

"Malaysia Airports' involvement in ISG started in 2008, as part of a consortium with Limak Holdings and GMR (MAHB – 20%, Limak – 40%, GMR – 40%) to develop a 25-million-passengers-per-annum greenfield airport.

"Later MAHB became the sole shareholder by acquiring the remaining shares from the consortium partners in 2014," it added.

Between 2009 and 2015, the airport was named as "Fastest Growing Airport" in its class by Airports Council International (ACI).

ISG also won the title of "Airport of the Year" in a capacity category with over 30 million annual passengers by the Centre of Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) in 2019.

"In 2019, Sabiha Gokcen Airport, MAHB's largest overseas investment served a record high of 35.5 million passengers and registered a profit of €25 million prior to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic," it added.

Last year, ISG was Europe's sixth busiest airport and second fastest-recovering airport in Europe with a number of total passenger of 25 million, equivalent to 70% of its 2019 performance.

This year until May 2022 the total number of passengers amounted to around 11 million, which is 81% of the airport performance in the same period in 2019 before the pandemic.

"International passenger movements has surpassed the same period in May 2019 by 105 percent, indicating possible full recovery by 2024," it underlined.

The airport is currently focusing on two major areas: continuously providing safe and seamless travel, and nurturing and retaining its employees, it added.

"ISG launched the 'Great Place to Work' initiative to create more openness and transparency in its human resource practices," the statement concluded. -