Defense Industry Undersecretariat (SSM) has awarded the operation license for Sabiha Gökçen International Airport, the second air gate of the city of Istanbul, at an unexpectedly high price of EUR 1.932 billion exculding VAT to the Turkish-Indian-Malaysian Joint Venture of Limak İnşaat-GMR Infranstructure-Malaysia Airports Holdigns Berhad.

The tender was started in Ankara on July 9 at 10.30 A.M, and lasted to the new day, taking 36 rounds of closed envelope biding for a price conclusion.

Limak Group owner and CEO Nihat Özdemir expressed his optimistic visions for the airport and underlined their own and their partners’ airport consruction and aperation experineces.

The scopes of teh tender covers Build-Operate-Transfer model (BOT) construction of a new international terminal and complementary works at the airport in return for a 20-year operation license.

Currently, the airport has a total 3.5 million total passanger capacitiy with 3 million of it at the international terminal.

At the moment, the airport serves mainly as a low-cost and charter airlines base, besides being the main hub of private Pegasus Airlines, and a secondary habu for Turkish Airlines. Some other cariers include: Corendan airlines, Germanwings, TUIfly, Condor Airlines, EasyJet, MyAir, AirArabia.