Izmir Adnan Menderes Airport

Izmir is Turkey’s third-largest city and the center of the Aegean coast – and Adnan Menderes Airport is its gateway to the world. Unlike the mega hub in Istanbul, it doesn’t live off connecting traffic between continents but off two streams of its own: a dense domestic network that links the city with Istanbul and Ankara several times a day, and leisure traffic that brings vacationers from half of Europe to the coast in summer. For spotters, that means plenty of narrowbodies, plenty of Turkish airlines – and a season that completely changes the picture.

From a military base to its own airport

The history of aviation in Izmir is a history of moves. Before 1987, civilian traffic ran through the Çiğli military airfield in the north of the city; a small airfield in Cumaovası in the south temporarily served as an alternate but was unsuitable for large aircraft and night operations. Civilian and military use under one roof didn’t mix well, and the city kept growing.

In 1984, construction therefore began on a new, purely civilian airport at the old Cumaovası site, in what is now the Gaziemir district. It opened in 1987 and was named after Adnan Menderes, the former prime minister of Turkey, who came from the region. That’s also where the IATA code ADB comes from. Çiğli remained a pure air force base.

Two serious accidents are linked to the site. In 1974, a Turkish Airlines Fokker F28 crashed shortly after takeoff from the old Cumaovası airfield, and in January 1988 – a few weeks after the new airport opened – a Boeing 737-200 of the German airline Condor flew into mountainous terrain on approach. Both events are part of the site’s history, even though today’s operation, with modern approach procedures, has nothing in common with those days.

TAV, two terminals and an operating model

Like most of Turkey’s big airports, Izmir belongs to the state. The airport authority DHMİ is the owner, but it has handed operations to a private company: TAV Airports, one of the region’s major airport operators, in which the French Groupe ADP holds the largest stake.

Getting there happened in two stages. First came a new international terminal. A build-and-operate model was awarded in 2004, TAV took over the majority of the project company in 2005, and in September 2006 the building opened – according to the available information, months ahead of schedule. With a good 107,000 square meters and nine passenger boarding bridges, it has handled international traffic ever since.

The second step followed in November 2011: with a bid of 610 million euros (excluding taxes), TAV secured the operating rights until the end of 2032 and committed to building a new domestic terminal. The new building opened in March 2014 and is considerably larger than its predecessor. In 2016, it became the first building in Turkey to receive LEED certification for sustainable construction.

The split between domestic and international is typical of Turkish airports. For you as a visitor, it means that anyone taking a domestic flight to Istanbul lands at a different building than the leisure flights from Düsseldorf or Manchester.

Two runways – but one is the main runway

On the map, Izmir looks like an airport with two runways. Both run parallel in a north-south direction and are 3,240 meters long and 45 meters wide. In everyday operations, though, that’s only half the truth: the runways are so close together that simultaneous operations aren’t possible.

• 16L/34R is the main runway, on which practically all traffic runs.
• 16R/34L with its concrete surface mainly serves as a backup, for example during maintenance work, and is also used as a taxiway.

In 2020, the apron was expanded significantly: instead of 35, there are now 61 parking positions, some of them for business and private aircraft. That helps above all in peak season, when dozens of leisure aircraft sit on the ground at the same time in the morning and evening.

For spotters, the runway layout is easy to grasp: because all movements take place on one runway, you don’t have to choose between several runway systems as in Istanbul. The only thing that matters is the runway direction in use – that is, whether aircraft take off and land toward 16 (to the south) or toward 34 (to the north).

How to assess wind and runway direction in general is explained in the post Understanding runway direction at airports. For forecasts a few days ahead, the article on Windy and other weather maps helps.

Traffic in numbers

According to the statistics of the airport authority DHMİ, Izmir handled around 12.7 million passengers in 2025 – about ten percent more than the year before. That put the airport in fifth place in Turkey. A good 7.6 million passengers flew within the country, around 5.1 million abroad.

The shift between the segments is interesting. Before COVID-19, Izmir was a clear domestic airport: in 2019, around three out of four passengers flew within Turkey. Since then, international traffic has caught up strongly and in 2025 was well above the 2019 figure, while domestic business has not yet returned to its old level. The record year 2018 with around 13.4 million passengers is within reach but not yet surpassed (as of October 2026).

For your planning, that means: domestic traffic runs all year, while international traffic fluctuates with the seasons. In midsummer the apron is full of leisure aircraft, and in winter Turkish Airlines, AJet and Pegasus dominate with their connections to Istanbul and Ankara.

Which airlines shape the picture

The Turkish heavyweights

Three airlines have a base in Izmir and park aircraft here overnight:

• SunExpress, the joint venture of Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa, has one of its most important bases in Izmir. The airline flies Boeing 737s – the 737-800 and the 737 MAX 8 – and connects the Aegean closely with Germany and other European countries.
• Pegasus Airlines, Turkey’s largest low-cost carrier, is present with domestic and international flights. Its fleet consists mainly of the Airbus A320neo and the A321neo.
• Corendon Airlines mainly serves leisure traffic from the Netherlands, Germany and other European countries.

On top of that comes Turkish Airlines, which uses Izmir as one of its most important domestic nodes and links it closely with Istanbul Airport. Its low-cost subsidiary AJet flies many routes to Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen, Ankara and other Turkish cities.

Leisure airlines and European guests

In summer, numerous airlines from Europe are added. Scheduled flights come from Lufthansa, among others, as well as from low-cost carriers such as easyJet and Jet2. From neighboring Greece, Aegean Airlines flies to Izmir. Exactly which routes are offered changes from season to season – a look at the current flight schedule is a must.

Because Turkish Airlines belongs to the Star Alliance, alliance partners occasionally show up as well. Widebody jets are the exception in Izmir, though: the apron is clearly dominated by narrowbodies.

Telling types apart: narrowbody training

Anyone spotting in Izmir mainly sees two aircraft families: the Boeing 737 and the Airbus A320 family. What sounds monotonous at first is actually an excellent training ground. You see older 737-800s next to the 737 MAX 8, first-generation A320s next to the A320neo, and the stretched A321 in both variants.

The differences are in the details. On the 737, the engines with a serrated trailing edge and the split winglets give away the MAX generation; how to reliably tell all the generations apart is covered in the post Telling the Boeing 737 Original, Classic, NG and MAX apart. On the Airbus, the clearly larger engines of the neo help – more on that in A320neo or ceo?. And whether an A320 or an A321 is taxiing in front of you shows in the fuselage length and the number of emergency exits above the wing, as the article Telling the A318, A319, A320 and A321 apart explains.

With so many aircraft of one type, a clean logbook pays off. How Turkish and other registrations are structured is covered in the post Understanding aircraft registrations.

Spotting in Izmir: caution is a must

As appealing as the mix of Turkish airlines and leisure aircraft is, spotting in Turkey is not the same as at the visitors’ hill in Munich. Airports are considered sensitive areas, and in the Izmir region there is also an active air force base at Çiğli. We are not aware of an official spotter zone in Izmir like the one the operator offers in Istanbul.

General information on the legal situation in other countries can be found in the post Spotting abroad. If you still want to capture aircraft in Izmir, you often make use of the legal options in the terminal or on your own departure – a window seat on the plane or the view from the waiting area at least delivers souvenir photos for your logbook.

Getting there: suburban rail right at the terminal

The airport is located in the Gaziemir district south of downtown and is well connected. The most convenient connection is the İZBAN suburban rail: it has its own stop at the airport and runs toward downtown and on to the south. Regional trains of the state railway TCDD, which connect towns in the hinterland such as Aydın, Tire or Ödemiş, also stop here.

By road, you reach the airport via the D550 highway and the motorway toward Aydın. City buses of the ESHOT transit authority and the airport buses of Havaş run to various parts of the city. Important for tourists: you can reach many resorts in the region, such as Çeşme or Kuşadası, by transfer – Izmir is the nearest major airport for these stretches of coast.

Izmir compared with other leisure airports

On the Turkish coast, Izmir is one of several big leisure airports. Antalya Airport on the Riviera is considerably larger and even more strongly shaped by international traffic. Further south are Bodrum Airport and Dalaman Airport, which live almost exclusively off summer traffic.

Izmir differs from them through its strong domestic traffic: as a big-city airport, it is busy all year round, while pure leisure airports get much quieter in winter. For a trip in fall or winter, Izmir is therefore often the better choice than the smaller coastal airports.

On the other side of the Aegean, Greek islands such as Kos, Rhodes or Lesbos lie within sight of the Turkish coast. Anyone planning a spotting trip through the region can combine Izmir with Kos Airport or Athens Airport. For a Turkey tour, a side trip to Istanbul is also worthwhile – the post Plane spotting in Istanbul offers tips, and the article Planning a spotting vacation makes the planning easier.

How to combine a beach vacation with a few hours at the airport without annoying your family is revealed in the post Plane spotting on vacation.

Conclusion

Izmir Adnan Menderes Airport is not a superlative hub but a solid big-city and leisure airport – and that’s exactly where its appeal lies. Around 12.7 million passengers in 2025, separate terminals for domestic and international flights and a single active main runway make it easy to take in. On the apron you meet the Turkish low-cost and leisure airlines in large numbers, plus guests from all over Europe.

Anyone who wants to take photos here has to proceed with care, though: the rules in Turkey are stricter than in Central Europe, and as far as we know there is no official spotter area. With proper respect for local regulations and a look at the flight schedule and runway direction, Izmir becomes a rewarding stop on any trip to the Aegean.