Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen Airport

Hear “Istanbul” and most people think of the huge airport on the European side. But on the other side of the Bosphorus, a second major airport has been growing for over twenty years that is at least as exciting for spotters: Sabiha Gökçen, SAW for short. Pegasus is at home here, AJet has one of its bases here, and the A320 and 737 families roll over two runways in minute intervals. With about 48 million passengers in 2025, SAW is long since no alternate airport but one of Europe’s most dynamic low-cost hubs.

A second airport for a growing city

In the late 1990s, then main airport Atatürk on the European side reached its limits. Istanbul was growing, as was air traffic, and the Asian side of the city had no commercial airport of its own. In February 1998, construction of a new airport therefore began in the Pendik district, about 32 kilometers southeast of the center. It began operations on January 8, 2001.

It is named after Sabiha Gökçen, an adopted daughter of the state’s founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. She is regarded as Turkey’s first female pilot and the world’s first female combat pilot. The name is not undisputed, though: her involvement in the military operation in the Dersim region in the 1930s still causes debate today.

In the first years SAW played only a supporting role. Two developments brought the breakthrough: the boom of Turkish low-cost airlines and the privatization of terminal operations. In 2007 a consortium of the Turkish Limak Group, the Indian infrastructure group GMR and Malaysia Airports won the contract. Since May 2008 the joint company ISG has run the terminal, originally for 20 years. The airport’s owner remains the state-backed company HEAŞ. Malaysia Airports later bought first GMR’s stake and, in early 2015, the remaining shares too.

The terminal of 2009

Today’s passenger terminal opened on October 31, 2009, after only about a year and a half of construction. Unlike at many airports, domestic and international flights run under one roof. The building was originally designed for about 25 million passengers a year – a figure the airport has long since clearly exceeded. According to the operator, the complex includes not only check-in counters and passport control but also an airport hotel, a conference area and a multi-story parking garage. According to ISG, the apron can simultaneously handle eight widebodies or sixteen narrowbody jets at flexible stands.

Growth was rapid. According to ISG, between 2009 and 2015 SAW was Europe’s fastest-growing airport every year, measured by passenger numbers. In 2010 the airport received the award for best airport in its category at a low-cost airline industry congress in London. For you as a spotter that explains a lot: the airport is designed for quick turnarounds, short ground times and high frequencies – exactly the profile of low-cost airlines.

Two runways since the end of 2023

For a long time the single runway was the bottleneck. All takeoffs and landings ran over 06L/24R, 3,000 meters long – dense crowding at peak times. On December 25, 2023, a second, parallel runway therefore went into operation: 06R/24L at about 3,500 meters. At the opening it was said that hourly capacity rises from 40 to up to 80 aircraft movements.

Both runways run from southwest to northeast. The designation “L” and “R” tells you how they lie relative to each other: if you look in direction 06, that is, to the northeast, 06L is on the left and 06R on the right. Which runway is currently used for takeoffs and which for landings is decided by air traffic control depending on traffic and weather. Check this on the day itself in a flight tracker – how that works is shown in the article on flight tracking with ADS-B.

Runway direction in use: 06 or 24?

As everywhere, aircraft take off and land into the wind. If it blows from the northeast, flights go toward 06 – landings then come from the southwest. With wind from the southwest the picture flips, and runway direction 24 applies. For photos at a runway end that means: approaches come in on only one side of the airport, while takeoffs climb away on the other.

How important the wind is at this airport is shown by a tragic case. On February 5, 2020, a Pegasus Boeing 737-800 from Izmir landed at SAW in heavy rain, thunderstorm and a strong tailwind, overran the end of the runway and plunged down an embankment. Three people died and many more were injured. The basics of how to estimate wind and runway direction in use before you set off are explained in the article Understanding the runway direction in use at an airport.

Pegasus: the host

No company shapes SAW as strongly as Pegasus Airlines. The low-cost airline is headquartered in the Kurtköy district of Pendik, practically on the airport’s doorstep, and Sabiha Gökçen is its home base. From here Pegasus flies a dense domestic network and many destinations in Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia. Unlike many European budget airlines, Pegasus deliberately relies on connecting passengers: anyone wanting to go from Germany to the Gulf region or Central Asia, for example, often changes at SAW.

The fleet is almost purely the Airbus A320 family. According to Pegasus’s fleet overview, at the end of March 2026 it consisted of 129 aircraft – including 68 Airbus A321neo, 46 A320neo, six A320ceo and nine Boeing 737-800. The numbers change constantly; in October 2026 Pegasus also took over the Czech Smartwings group, whose aircraft continue to fly under their own brand.

For you that means: at SAW you see Pegasus in large numbers, and the challenge lies in telling them apart. The A320neo and A320ceo look similar at first glance – how to tell them apart is explained in the article A320neo or ceo?. Highlights are the few remaining 737-800s and special liveries that occasionally turn up in scheduled service. How to track down such aircraft is shown in the article Finding special liveries.

AJet and the Turkish Airlines group

The second big force at the airport is AJet. The brand started in 2008 as AnadoluJet, then still a low-cost offering within Turkish Airlines. In 2024 it became an independent airline: early in the year it received its own air operator certificate, and on April 1, 2024, the new name AJet followed. The company is wholly owned by Turkish Airlines and has bases in Ankara-Esenboğa and Antalya in addition to Sabiha Gökçen.

AJet is interesting for spotters because its fleet is mixed. Besides Airbus A320s and A321s of the old and new generation, the airline also flies Boeing 737-800s and the Boeing 737 MAX 8. So it is worth a quick look at the landing gear, the engines and the wingtips before you write an AJet jet into your logbook as an “A320”.

Turkish Airlines’ own long-haul, by contrast, takes place almost entirely at Istanbul Airport on the European side. If you are looking for widebodies in Turkish livery, SAW is the wrong place.

Who else lands at SAW

Besides the two Turkish incumbents, numerous foreign airlines fly to Sabiha Gökçen – a striking number of them from the Middle East and Central Asia. They include low-cost airlines such as Air Arabia, flynas and Jazeera Airways, but also carriers from countries whose aircraft you hardly ever see in central Europe. For collectors who hunt airlines rather than types, that is the airport’s real appeal.

Freight is added. According to the available route overviews, Cargolux, the cargo division of Ethiopian Airlines and Turkey’s MNG Airlines fly to SAW, among others. Which freighters actually come when is hard to predict – a look at the flight tracker the day before helps.

The grounds also have a maintenance area where Turkish Technic works, among others. Occasionally aircraft that are not part of the airport’s scheduled service therefore turn up – such as aircraft coming in for maintenance. Specific dates are hard to plan, but if you check SAW regularly, you will be surprised here again and again.

Traffic and records

The figures show how much the airport has grown in recent years. In 2023 SAW counted a good 36.8 million passengers, in 2024 about 41.4 million. In 2025 came the next leap to about 48.4 million passengers – an increase of about 17 percent. Clearly more than half of them traveled internationally, about 27.2 million versus about 21.2 million in domestic traffic. More than 270,000 aircraft movements were added.

The airport authority reported the record for a single day so far for September 7, 2025: 856 takeoffs and landings and a good 160,000 passengers in one day. The growth was driven mainly by international traffic, which grew by more than a fifth, while domestic traffic grew only slightly. For you as a spotter that mainly means: it is rarely boring. Especially on weekends and during summer holidays, movement follows movement.

Getting there: by metro to the airport

For a long time SAW could only be reached by bus, taxi or car. Since October 2, 2022, metro line M4 runs from Kadıköy via Pendik to the Sabiha Gökçen Havalimanı station. That connects the airport to the city’s rail network, and you get from the Asian shore to the terminal without traffic jams. Another metro line between the center of Pendik and the airport was most recently under construction; check before your trip which connections currently run.

Between SAW and Istanbul Airport on the European side lie great distances and the Bosphorus. If you want to visit both airports on one trip, you should not squeeze that into one afternoon. Tips for such a tour are collected in the article Plane spotting in Istanbul.

SAW compared

Within Istanbul the division of roles is clear. Istanbul Airport is the long-haul hub of Turkish Airlines, member of the Star Alliance, with widebodies from all over the world. Sabiha Gökçen is the counterpart for low-cost and regional traffic – smaller in its range of types, but with a variety of airlines you rarely see elsewhere.

From the German-speaking region, SAW is well connected, mainly via the Pegasus network; which routes are currently running depends on the current schedule. Compared with big German airports such as Frankfurt Airport or Düsseldorf Airport, the range of types at SAW is narrower, while the airline variety from the east is greater. If you travel on in Turkey, you often end up in Antalya – Antalya Airport is the opposite model: leisure traffic with airlines such as SunExpress, strongly seasonal and with many European charter and low-cost airlines.

Conclusion

Sabiha Gökçen is the airport where you can watch the Turkish low-cost miracle live. Pegasus has its home here, AJet an important base, and with the second runway and over 48 million passengers in 2025, SAW has become one of Europe’s liveliest airports. If you are after types, you mainly find the A320 and 737 families. If you collect airlines, you get a selection from the Middle East and Central Asia that is rare in central Europe.

What makes the difference between a good and a difficult visit here is less light and wind than preparation: know the rules, don’t confuse SAW and IST, note registrations cleanly. Then the detour to the Asian side of the Bosphorus is worth it.