As officially reported by the Turkish press, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will take part in the grand opening of Cukurova Airport, located 20 km from Tarsus, Mersin Province, on August 10. It is possible that direct flights from Russia may appear there, which will increase the attractiveness of beach holidays at the resorts of Mersin.
Chukurova Airport is a record-breaking “long-term construction”. The tender for the construction of this airport was announced back in 2011. The groundbreaking ceremony for the airport complex took place in 2013. But further construction, carried out in a public-private partnership mode, proceeded extremely slowly.
Chukurova was repeatedly promised to open in 2021, 2022, 2023. In 2023, “test” flights began from the almost finished airport, and the airport itself was once again “firmly” promised to open in the first quarter of 2024. But it didn’t happen this time either.
But nevertheless, the airport will finally open this year: last weekend it was officially announced that on August 10, 2024, Turkish President Erdogan himself will fly to the grand opening of Çukurova.
Initially, when designing Çukurova airport, it was assumed that it would serve two provinces at once - Mersin and Adana. This was dictated by the location - the place where the airport is located is located approximately halfway between the two centers of the provinces of the same name, 20 km south of the city of Tarsus.
Çukurova Airport is expected to become an important hub for the transport of both cargo and passengers. It will accept international and domestic flights; it already has international status; a division of the border control and customs service was formed in 2022.
The area of the entire Cukurova airport complex is 800 hectares. The new airport's runway is 3,500 meters long, built to CAT-II standards and is capable of receiving and dispatching all types of aircraft, including all existing wide-body aircraft.
There are three aprons (parking areas) for aircraft on the airfield: for passenger flights – with an area of 217 thousand square meters. m with a capacity of 40 aircraft, an apron for cargo aviation (62 thousand sq. m. for 4 aircraft), as well as an apron for business aviation (56 thousand sq. m. for 54 aircraft). The airport terminal building in Čukurov has an area of 110 thousand square meters. m.
With the commissioning of Çukurova airport, passenger connections with the province of Mersin may improve, to travel to which tourists now need to fly to Adana.
The province of Mersin has long been tipped to compete with Antalya - the local beaches are in no way inferior, and in some ways superior to those in Antalya. There are many more beaches here, beloved by family Russian tourists, with fine sand and a smooth entry into the water. There are also huge, wide, long “postcard” beaches, not inferior to the famous Patara in Kas. Among the beaches of Mersin there are 11 with Blue Flags.
In summer, the climate here is quite “Antalya”, rather the same as in Alanya. In winter, it’s warm enough to spend your holidays in hotels with heated pools (if they build them here, of course).
In addition to beaches, Mersin province has a large number of historical attractions. Just near the main city of the province there are at least 5 ancient cities that can easily be compared with Antalya Phaselis or Olympos, and several interesting medieval fortresses.
There are also interesting places for Christians, for example, very close to the new airport is ancient Tarsus, the birthplace of the Apostle Paul. Mersin province also has many natural attractions: beautiful mountain rivers, canyons, waterfalls, caves. For excursions on a beach holiday - more than enough.
Currently, the flow of tourists to Mersin from Russia is relatively small: mainly people associated with the construction of the Akkuyu NPP (builders, nuclear specialists and their families), owners of real estate, which is still almost half the price here than in Antalya, and also a few independent tourists.
Tour operators do not yet offer organized tours to Mersin province. They admit that Mersin has great prospects, but the province is “not mature enough” for charters. At the local resorts there are still few large hotels with the all-inclusive system, which Russians are accustomed to in Turkey, and few tourists from the Russian Federation are ready to relax in small facilities with breakfast or half board.
The process of construction of large modern hotel complexes in Mersin, however, is ongoing; a number of new high-quality facilities have recently opened. Turkish experts believe that with the commissioning of the new airport, investment in the construction of hotels should accelerate, which means that “big tourism” is not far off, including from Russia.
