The turnover of Turkish civil aviation sector, which stood at TL 3 billion ($570 million) in 2003, reached TL 110 billion by August 2018.

According to information compiled from the Transport and Infrastructure Ministry's book entitled, "Reaching and Accessing Turkey," Turkey, which is located in a region where 1.5 billion people can reach it by plane in four hours or less, is close to the region holding the highest demand for air transport in the world.

While air transport has been developing rapidly in Turkey due to the economic situation, advancing technology and increasing competition, the aviation sector grew at nearly three times the world average. As a result of the policies carried out from 2003 to the present in Turkey that ranked the 10th in the world and 4th in Europe in the number of passengers, the number of aircraft operated by the airline companies surged by 220 percent, the seat capacity by 254 percent, and the cargo capacity by 449 percent, while the number of international destinations reached 351.

While there were 626 aircraft within the scope of civil aviation enterprises in 2003 with 162 airplanes, 131 air taxi, 34 hot balloon, 162 aircraft used for general civil aviation operations and 137 aircraft used for agricultural spraying. By August this year, the number rose to 1,390, including 512 aircraft, 202 air taxi, 252 hot balloons, 362 aircraft used for general civil aviation operations and 62 aircraft used for agricultural spraying. Meanwhile, the number of people employed in the sector increased from 65,000 to 196,041 by the end of 2017.

While the number of airports in Turkey has increased from 26 to 55 over the last 14 years, the number of passengers who utilize these airports has increased five-fold from 35 million to 198 million in the first 11 months of this year.