Antalya Airport

If you stand at a German airport in summer, you see it on the departure boards all the time: Antalya. Hardly any destination is served as often, and hardly any airport in Europe’s vacation regions is bigger. About 39 million people traveled through AYT in 2025 – and because almost every European leisure and charter airline lands here, the airport on the Turkish Riviera is a grab bag for spotters. There is just no comfortable visitors’ hill like the one in Munich. If you want to take photos in Antalya, you need to know how the runways work, when the light is right and where the limits are.

From provincial airfield to holiday giant

When the airport opened in 1960, the region around Antalya was still far from the hotel complexes in Lara, Belek or Side. The real boom came with mass tourism from the 1980s and 1990s. In 1998, International Terminal 1 opened, while the old building stayed reserved for domestic traffic. As early as 2003, Antalya passed the mark of ten million passengers a year, and in 2005 International Terminal 2 added the second big hall for international flights. In 2010, a new domestic terminal replaced the old building.

Today, according to figures from the state airport authority DHMİ, Antalya is the third-largest airport in Turkey – behind Istanbul Airport and Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen. The difference from the two hubs on the Bosporus is clear: connecting passengers hardly matter in Antalya. Here vacationers arrive and fly home one or two weeks later. Traffic accordingly swings strongly between summer and winter.

How strongly tourism shapes Antalya is shown by the pandemic: after just under 36 million passengers in 2019, traffic collapsed to under ten million in 2020. Since then, the airport is clearly back above pre-crisis levels – a good 38 million in 2024, about 39.1 million in 2025. A good four out of five passengers travel internationally.

Who operates the airport

The airport belongs to the state authority DHMİ, but the terminals are run by a private company: Fraport TAV Antalya. Behind it are Frankfurt-based Fraport AG, which according to its own statements holds 51 percent, and the Turkish airport operator TAV Airports. Fraport has long been active in Antalya: since 2007 the group has run the terminals, at first together with IC İçtaş, since 2018 with TAV as its partner.

In 2021, the consortium won the tender for the next round. The new concession begins on January 1, 2027 and runs 25 years to the end of 2051. Part of the contract is a major expansion that began in 2022. The first phase has been complete since 2025: Terminal 2 and the domestic terminal were significantly enlarged, and new apron areas were added. After all expansion phases are finished, the airport is designed, according to the operator, for more than 82 million passengers a year – more than double today’s traffic.

Important for travelers: a free shuttle bus connects the terminals. Which airline is handled in which building can change with the schedule change – according to the operator, all international flights have run through Terminal 2 since October 27, 2025. Check the current assignment before departure on the airport’s website.

Three runways running north–south

At first glance the layout is simple: three parallel runways run from north to south. The two 3,400-meter concrete runways 18L/36R and 18C/36C carry the civil traffic. The westernmost runway 18R/36L measures 2,990 meters, is asphalt and is mainly used for military movements.

The division of roles between the two civil runways does not come from an official publication but from reports by the spotter community. It is handy because it lets you focus on landings or takeoffs – but do not rely on it blindly. Air traffic control can change the distribution at any time, for example during construction work or heavy traffic.

Runway direction 18 or 36?

As everywhere, aircraft take off and land into the wind. When movements head south, runway direction 18 is in use – landings then come in from the north over the hinterland. With direction 36, aircraft glide in from the south, that is, from the coast. Spotters describe a typical pattern in summer: in the morning, landings are often from the south, around midday operations frequently turn, and in the evening they can change again. That is related to the sea breeze that builds over the coast on hot days. It is not guaranteed – a look at a flight tracker or the wind forecast saves you from the wrong location. How to check this in advance is explained in the article understanding the runway direction in use at an airport.

Who flies to Antalya

The real reason spotters love Antalya is on every tail: the variety is huge. According to the operator, 101 airlines fly to the airport, and in midsummer a large share of them shows up on a single day. Roughly, you can tell three groups apart.

The Turkish home airlines

Two leisure airlines are headquartered in Antalya. SunExpress, the joint venture of Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa, is the defining user and flies only Boeing 737s – the 737-800 and increasingly the 737 MAX 8. Corendon Airlines is also at home here and is a regular sight on the apron in summer.

Other Turkish airlines also maintain bases in Antalya, including Pegasus Airlines, AJet, Freebird Airlines and Southwind Airlines. Turkish Airlines itself serves Antalya intensively, mainly with connections to Istanbul. If you want to tell the Turkish carriers apart cleanly, look at the tail and the registration: Turkish aircraft carry the prefix TC-.

Europe’s leisure airlines

In summer, Antalya is like a family reunion of the European leisure airlines. From Germany you see, for example, Condor, Eurowings and TUIfly, from the UK Jet2 and TUI Airways. Enter Air comes from Poland, Smartwings from the Czech Republic. Carriers from Scandinavia, the Benelux countries and Southeast Europe mix in. Which airlines are actually represented in the current schedule changes from season to season – the departure and arrival boards show you the current state.

Narrowbody jets are typical of the scene: the Boeing 737-800, the 737 MAX and the A320 family up to the A321neo. If you still mix up the variants of the Airbus family, the article telling the A318, A319, A320 and A321 apart has the key features.

Airlines from Eastern Europe and Russia

A peculiarity for spotters from Central Europe: because Turkey has not closed its airspace to Russian airlines, carriers from Russia and other CIS states, such as Aeroflot, regularly land in Antalya. In the EU these aircraft have not been seen since 2022. For many spotters from Germany, Antalya is thus one of the few places within vacation range where these liveries come in front of the lens. How the offering develops depends heavily on the political situation – so do not plan firmly around individual airlines.

Spotting in Antalya: what you need to know

There is no official observation deck in Antalya. If you want to take photos, you have two options: from public paths and roads outside the fence or – with a valid boarding pass – through the glass fronts in the terminal. Both work, and both have their pitfalls.

Around the fence

Over the years, the spotter community has documented a whole series of locations around the grounds: on dirt tracks between greenhouses, on side roads and on pedestrian bridges over the tram and the main road. Most lie on the approach paths of the landing runway, so you catch landings filling the frame. Some of these places are on private property or at abandoned buildings – you are better off avoiding such spots, if only for safety reasons.

To reach the spots at the fence, you generally need a car or a taxi. Expect heat, little shade and hardly any infrastructure. Water, sun protection and a hat are basic equipment in summer – tips are in the article plane spotting in summer.

From the terminal

If you have a return flight from Antalya, you can use the waiting time. From areas of Terminal 2, according to spotters, you look onto the apron, taxiways and the takeoff runway 18L/36R. You shoot through glass, which brings reflections and blur – a lens hood held right against the pane helps. Before you take photos, check whether there are signs on site about a photo ban.

A big telephoto lens stands out, especially in rural surroundings. According to reports from the community, residents and farmers occasionally call the police. If you travel in a small group or alone, stay near your car and do not linger for hours at the same stretch of fence, you tend to have less trouble. Why long focal lengths at airports sometimes arouse suspicion and how to handle it is explained in the article big telephoto lens, big suspicion.

Light, heat and the best time to travel

Antalya is a sun destination – for photographers both a blessing and a curse. Cloudless days are the rule in summer, but over hot asphalt and dry fields the air shimmers so strongly by late morning that long focal lengths hardly produce sharp images. Spotters therefore recommend the morning hours from sunrise until about 10 or 11 a.m. and the late afternoon until sunset. You are better off using midday for the beach. The article avoiding heat haze has more on the topic.

For a pure spotting trip, May, June, September and October are a good compromise. If you want maximum airline variety, though, there is no way around July and August – just with a very early alarm. How to plan a vacation around airports without the family revolting is in the article plane spotting on vacation, and preparing your own spotting trip is in the article planning a spotting vacation.

Getting there and transport links

The airport lies east of the city on the D400 expressway, about 10 to 13 kilometers from the center. Since 2016, the AntRay tram line has connected the airport with the city center and the bus station. City buses also run, such as line 600 to the bus station and line 800 to Lara, as well as shuttle buses and taxis. Most vacationers reach their hotels in Lara, Belek, Side or Kemer by tour operator transfer bus, though.

For spotters, a rental car is the most flexible solution, because many spots are away from the stops. You can get rental cars right at the airport. When parking, take care not to block driveways or dirt tracks – that is exactly what turns residents against spotters.

Antalya compared

On the Turkish coast, Antalya is the top dog. Farther west lie Dalaman Airport and Bodrum-Milas Airport, which also live off holiday traffic but are much smaller. On the Aegean, Izmir Airport is another SunExpress base. If you want more long-haul and hub atmosphere, you are better off at Istanbul Airport.

Within Europe, Antalya is best compared with other big holiday airports on the Mediterranean, such as in the Canary Islands or the Balearics. The difference lies in the mix: hardly anywhere else do Western European leisure airlines, Turkish home airlines and carriers from Eastern Europe meet so densely. The page on the TUI airlines gives an overview of the fleets of the big travel groups.

Conclusion

Antalya Airport is not a place for a relaxed afternoon on the observation deck – there simply is none. What it offers instead is something hardly any other airport within reach of German vacationers has: an enormous mix of Turkish home airlines, Western European leisure airlines and carriers from Eastern Europe, spread over a clearly organized runway system under almost guaranteed sun.

The key to good images lies in three things: get up early, know the runway direction and keep a low profile at the fence. If you respect the rules and avoid private property and military areas, you take home more than beach photos from a vacation on the Turkish Riviera.