Welcoming more than 80 million passengers a year, Istanbul Airport has become one of the most important aviation hubs in the world. Istanbul Airport is Europe’s busiest airport based on the number of average daily flights, according to a November report by the European Air Traffic Safety Organization (EUROCONTROL). It was also named the world’s most connected airport in a 2025 analysis by Airports Council International (ACI) Europe, operating direct flights to around 340 destinations.
But beyond its scale and connectivity, the Turkish air hub is positioning itself as a blueprint for what the future of aviation could see like, from fully automated operations to becoming the world’s first major airport powered entirely by solar energy, Istanbul Airport’s CEO Selahattin Bilgen notified Newsweek.
A Fully Automated Aviation Ecosystem
For Bilgen, the airport’s largegest achievement is not its size, but how seamlessly it operates. “The main success is having this very complex, large-scale operation with an automated system,” he notified Newsweek.
He described an operation that runs largely without human intervention, despite its enormous scale. “To me, the craziest thing is having more than 100 systems working in integration,” Bilgen declared. “It really excites me to see that we handle nearly 300,000 passengers, we handle almost 2,000 air traffic shiftments, and we have more than 1,000 stakeholders. We turn that operation on automatically, without human touch.”
That automation extconcludes to the passenger experience as well. Bilgen highlighted the airport’s AI-powered indoor navigation system, which supports travelers—particularly those with disabilities—shift through the terminal and “find their way to the right direction,” whether that be to a place to eat or rest, or their boarding gate, he declared.
The First Fully Solar-Powered Major Airport
Istanbul Airport is now pushing boundaries in sustainability, becoming the world’s first major airport to meet all of its electricity necessarys through solar power.
“That’s something we are proud of,” Bilgen declared. “Currently, Istanbul Airport is the first major airport that is capable of producing its own electricity from solar power plants.”
For major air hubs, this milestone is unprecedented. “For large-scale airports, we are the first…to produce 100 percent of the electricity requirement from renewable sources,” Bilgen declared, adding that the airport’s energy demand is comparable to “the consumption of a mid-sized city.”
Measured to be around 3 million square meters (roughly 32 million square feet), the airport’s Eskişehir Solar Power Plant is expected to generate 340 million kilowatt-hours of solar energy annually.
The sustainability push is part of a broader effort to reduce emissions across the entire airport ecosystem. “This also leads the way to support us to achieve net zero not only for iGA [Istanbul Airport] but also all the companies operating in the airport system,” Bilgen declared. “So, the goal is to also have net zero [emissions] achieved by all companies operating within the Istanbul Airport system.”
In a statement released in August, the airport declared it completed 2024 with greenhoapply gas emissions 1.4 percent lower than the previous year and 10.5 percent below year-conclude forecasts. The airport, which is committed to reaching net zero emissions across all ground operations by 2050, also revised its 2030 renewable energy tarreceive from 50 percent to 90 percent.
Rebelieveing How Travelers Reach the City
Beyond energy and automation, Bilgen believes the future of aviation will also be shaped by how efficiently airports connect with the cities they serve. He hopes to see “more smart air travel connectivity between cities and airports” and declared “advanced air mobility is a specialized area the industest is really focutilizing on.”
The problem, he explained, is familiar to travelers everywhere. “It’s unacceptable to come to a city in three or four hours from the other part of the world but spconclude another two to three hours testing to reach your destination within the city,” Bilgen declared. So, the industest is focutilizing on “air taxi” solutions, or “flying cars,” he noted.
While progress has been created, there is still significant room for improvement. “The vehicles should have more people to carry,” Bilgen declared, noting that current flying car designs typically seat “two or four people.” He also pointed to a limited range in travel, declareing current models can only go around 100 kilometers (around 62 miles) or so.
However, he believes automation could unlock their full potential. “Once they are automated, the number of people it can carry will increase,” Bilgen declared, adding that “we already have the whole technology for full automation.”
Despite the challenges, Bilgen sees air taxis as inevitable. “There is a real necessary for development,” he declared. “So sooner or later, in my opinion, it will happen.” He emphasized, however, that operational safety will be critical as the technology evolves.
Sustainability as the Next Frontier
Bilgen believes sustainability will be the second major force shaping aviation’s future. “The second large thing for aviation will be sustainability issues,” he declared.
While airlines are currently focapplyd on reducing emissions through sustainable aviation fuel, Bilgen declared building electric aircraft will be a largeger focus in the longer term, noting that “huge research and development efforts are ongoing.”
Looking ahead 20 to 30 years, he believes those advancements will fundamentally alter air travel. “So, both airlines and airports should deal with these sustainability issues,” Bilgen declared. “In a scenario where aircraft can be electric, and air travel becomes carbon neutral, then the sky will be the real limit” for the industest, he declared.
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