Türkiye's air travel authority said on Wednesday that nearly 200 million passengers, including transit passengers, traveled through the country's airports between January and November.
The 11-month figure rose 18% at an annualized pace, exceeding the pre-pandemic level of 195.5 million, according to State Airports Authority General Directorate (DHMI) data.
Domestic passenger numbers grew 16.7% year-over-year to reach 84.4 million from January to November.
Some 115.3 million passengers took international flights in the first 11 months of this year, a surge of 19.2% from 2022.
Türkiye's airports served more than 2 million planes, including overflights. Of these, 804,381 were on domestic routes and 759,649 on international ones. This was up 15.3% from the same period last year.
Passenger traffic in Türkiye's busiest air hub, Istanbul Airport, rose 19% year-over-year to 70.4 million from January to November.
Türkiye's second-busiest hub, Sabiha Gökçen Airport, located on Istanbul’s Anatolian side, saw 33.9 million passengers, soaring 21% in the same period.
In the January-November period, an increase was observed in the number of passengers served at the airports at Türkiye's key tourism destinations, including western Izmir, the Mediterranean resort of Antalya and southwestern Muğla.
According to the data, Antalya Airport took the lead by serving a total of 34.5 million passengers in 11 months, followed by Izmir Adnan Menderes Airport with some 9.94 million passengers and Muğla's Dalaman with 5.1 million passengers.
Looking at monthly data, the number of passengers flying via Turkish airports, including transit passengers, increased by 8.7% from a year ago to 14.7 million in November.
Plane traffic, including overflights, was at 156,028 last month, rising 4.3% year-over-year, while air cargo traffic hit 320,161 tons.
Istanbul Airport welcomed 5.8 million passengers, with 1.3 million on domestic routes and 4.5 million on international flights. The mega-airport served 39,211 flights in November.
Sabiha Gökçen Airport saw nearly 3 million passengers, including 1.6 million domestic and 1.5 million international ones.
Separate data shared Wednesday showed that the country's national flag carrier, Turkish Airlines, carried 6 million passengers this November, up 4.1% from a year ago, the company said.
The total number of passengers of Turkish Airlines soared 16.6% at an annual pace to 77.3 million in the January-November period.
Its total load factor edged up by 2.3 points annually to 82.8% in the first 11 months of this year.
