Summary:
- iGA Istanbul Airport highlights strong digital innovation focus as it targets 90 million passengers and expands connectivity across 340 non-stop destinations.
- New commercial concept ‘UÇUR’ in development will enable airport-wide food delivery, allowing passengers to order F&B from across terminals with 1km+ reach.
- Long-term expansion plans include new runway development and capacity growth to 120 million passengers, supporting Istanbul Airport’s vision to serve up to 200 million travellers.
Singapore Marina Bay Sands, 13 May 2026: Talking on the ‘World of Innovation Agora Stage’ at the recent TFWA Asia Pacific Exhibition & Conference in Singapore, Halil İbrahim Anasoy, Commercial Director, iGA Istanbul Airport, gave some important indicators of the mega-hub’s intensive thirst for digital innovations. These are much needed to allow its commercial and retail offers to keep pace with growth which will see the airport sweep past the 90 million passenger milestone this year as it continues to expand at an enviable rate despite the disruption experience by rival Middle East hubs.
Anasoy explained that the airport’s commercial strategy has to be resolutely focused on leveraging the extraordinary connectivity generated by 340 non-stop destinations. This required crafting retail offers and solutions, so they would closely match the desires and spending habits of the 40% of its 90 million throughput who would be transit passengers this year, despite the fact that they were drawn from diverse markets heavily concentrated in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. These catchments will be soon expanded still further as the deliveries of Turkish Airlines’ ultra-long-range A350-1000s will mean the advent of non-stop Sydney flights later this year (followed by Melbourne in first-half 2027) – a traffic stream which will severely compete with just about every one-stop airline to-from Oceania, and especially the Middle East hubs.
While many of Istanbul’s digital solutions are widely reported in FTE (after all Dr Reha Çeti̇n, General Manager, IST Systems, was only recently named on the FTE Airport Digital Transformation Power List EMEA 2026), one standout application currently under development and discussed by Anasoy is the advanced plan to introduce a food delivery system called UÇUR. This would potentially enable passengers to order meals from F&B offers anywhere within the terminal and have them delivered directly to their location. “You will be able to order your meal from an outlet in Pier A and have it delivered to Pier D, a distance exceeding 1km,” Anasoy explained.
Notwithstanding the functionality of UÇUR, Anasoy was questioned on the challenge of making transit guests aware of UÇUR’s very existence and benefits. To solve this, Anasoy explained that it was likely that UÇUR would be teamed with a household name delivery app, allowing the many guests who possessed that app to receive notifications of UÇUR on arrival in Istanbul.
“We are looking for special technological solutions, hybrid retail and F&B concepts, and new experiences,” Anasoy said. “Those are the kinds of partnerships we are excited about for the future.”
Meanwhile, built on a greenfield site in barely five years, the eye-watering pace of Istanbul Airport infrastructure shows no sign of slowing: a 4th runway in the second half of 2026, while continuing investment will raise terminal capacity from 90 million to 120 million. Ultimately the horizon of current plans sees the operation of six runways and a second terminal as the airport moves towards its long-term vision of serving up to 200 million passengers.
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