Istanbul faces a backlog of canceled flights

Bad weather conditions grounded hundreds of flights at Istanbul's two airports throughout the week. Canceled flights are expected to create further delays in the coming days as passengers waiting to board a flight will be prioritized according to the closest one available.

Heavy snowfall since the beginning of the week dealt a blow to daily life in Istanbul while weather forecasts show the near-whiteout conditions may come to an end today.

Bad weather led to mass cancellations in incoming and outgoing flights from the city's Atatürk and Sabiha Gökçen airports, both for domestic and international flights. Since Monday, hundreds of flights have been canceled or delayed. On Thursday, the country's national carrier Turkish Airlines (THY) announced it canceled over 370 domestic and international flights from Atatürk airport, Istanbul's main aviation hub.

Long-distance flights were particularly affected by snowstorms and blizzards. THY accommodated some 8,000 passengers who suffered from flight cancellations and delays in hotels, and passengers for yesterday's flights formed long lines at THY desks set up to manage hotel bookings. Buses sent to transfer passengers to hotels were also affected by heavy snow and a large number of passengers who could not be transferred to hotels waited for long hours at the terminal where THY staff delivered food to the stranded passengers.

Still, thousands were left without accommodation, as the hotels were already crowded. A large crowd of passengers took shelter in the terminal, sleeping on benches.

In the early hours of Thursday, some flights began taking off from the airport thanks to declining snowfall and round-the-clock efforts to keep the runways clear of snow. The State Airports Authority (DHMİ), which oversees the operation of the airports in the country, announced that flights were expected to take place without delays later on Thursday. According to weather forecasts, snowfall will be replaced with rainfall on Friday with a rise in temperatures and temperatures will continue to increase over the weekend.

Elham Nikba, an Iranian passenger flying to Los Angeles, was among the passengers who spent Wednesday night at a conference hall inside the airport. Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Nikba said he was waiting for the resumption of flights since his flight at 13:00 on Wednesday was canceled. Turkish passengers of delayed flights rushed to book flights in an advance date while foreigners who could not find accommodation by THY sought shelter at nearby hotels at their own expense.

No concrete figures are available on how much the canceled flights will cost the carrier, but the amount is expected to be high when coupled with accommodation fees and refunds.

Atatürk Airport is among the busiest in Turkey, attracting 57 million passengers in 2014 according to Bloomberg News, some 16 million lower than London's Heathrow, which received 73.4 million travelers. It is also a major transit hub for connecting flights between Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

With an influx of passengers from canceled flights, a gridlock is expected in the airport that may take days to end. Although weather conditions will see the flight schedule returning to normal, experts say a number of other factors may affect the backlog of flights. According to experts, a large number of flights are shuttle flights or successive flights by a single airplane to multiple destinations and delays especially in airports in other countries may deal a blow to the ones at Atatürk Airport.

Turkey has been embattled with heavy snow for weeks, but Istanbul, the country's largest city with a population of more than 14 million, was among the most affected places with unprecedented precipitation taking hold for days.

Snowstorms hit traffic the most with mass transit coming to a halt again on Wednesday evening and yesterday. Metro services between Yenikapı and Hacıosman districts were suspended for almost an hour due to technical problems on Wednesday evening while broken metrobuses forced hundreds of commuters to walk on Tuesday and had to travel at low speeds, leaving passengers in the overcrowded vehicles frustrated. Motorists, meanwhile, were stuck on motorways where accidents and icy roads led to a lengthy gridlock.

The TransEuropean Motorway that stretches from cities east of Istanbul to the border with Greece and Bulgaria in northwestern Turkey was closed for hours yesterday morning when large trucks without tire chains were stranded on a section of the road between Büyükçekmece in western Istanbul and Mahmutbey, a busy intersection where the motorway is joined by another main road. Authorities deployed snowplows to clear the road and cranes to remove the stranded trucks.