Construction site work has begun on a new airport in the Black Sea province of Trabzon, which will be Türkiye's third built on the sea, Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu said Monday.

The work has started on setting up the construction site for the infrastructure, and the project will require 100 million tons of fill dumped into the Black Sea, Uraloğlu said.

The existing airport's single 2,640-meter runway and its facilities are inadequate for growing passenger and cargo traffic, the minister said.

"We will give Trabzon a new, higher-capacity, modern airport that meets international standards," Uraloğlu said.

As part of the project, a 6,000-meter protective breakwater is planned to shield the fill area from the sea.

The airport will feature a 3,000-meter runway, 45 meters wide, with a parallel taxiway of the same length and width.

An apron 1,370 meters long and 155 meters wide, and a security apron 400 meters long and 120 meters wide are also part of the project.

According to Uraloğlu, the airport will have a 110,000-square-meter terminal building with capacity for 10 million passengers a year. The existing airport handles more than 3 million passengers a year.

It will also include a technical block of 65,000 square meters, an air traffic control tower and support buildings.

Trabzon, a city of nearly a million people, is known for its green valleys, steep hills and a Byzantine-era monastery.

The local economy runs on agriculture and tourism. The city has become one of the hotspots for foreign tourists in recent years, particularly for those from the Gulf countries.