West Antalya Airport (Batı Antalya Havalimanı)

 

The Western Antalya region has a tremendous potential to develop Alternative Tourism in the specialized segments of Religion, Yachting, Archaeology and Eco-Tourism.

 

Despite such diversified alternative potentials, tourism in the region has not developed enough as it should have been due to mountainous topography, very high number of natural and archaeological protection areas, consequently difficulties and poor standards on highways hence excessive distance to airports.

 

There are very high number of archaeological ruins and naturally protected areas in the region that are all registered and under protection in large. The high density of such protection areas has resulted in investors to build small boutique hotels, pensions and villa type accommodation facilities in general due to the lack of large pieces of land.          

 

The main reason of the slow tourism development and consequently low tourism earnings of the locals ‎in the region is mainly attributed to the poor transportation infrastructure and mode that behold arrival of tourists from mid to high income groups.

 

Kaş and Kalkan in particular have slightly advanced in tourism as a result of advantages that they have from the yachting tourism. However the tourism development, hence the wealth driven from tourism there, have not been as it should be when considering their potential simply owing to the negative effects of the travelling distances being very high to both Dalaman and Antalya Airports.

 

The region is an ideal location for yachting due to ideal weather, richness of natural beauties and archaeological heritages as well as the suitable and sheltered coastal landscape. However the recently built marina in Kaş with a 700 yacht capacity as well as marinas and mooring places in Finike, Kalkan and Üçağız are operating with low occupancy as a result of again due to the poor road infrastructure and very long travelling distances to airports. The destiny of the marina with 750 yacht capacity that is under construction in Demre is not going to be any different.

 

Lately there has been a considerable increase in the second home constructions and ownerships as well as seasonal residencies in the region but these cannot be considered within the general framework of tourism industry.

 

The need of an airport in West Antalya was assessed many years ago. However suitable location has just been found due to the region’s mountainous topography, existence of many natural and archaeological protection zones, forests and aviational obstructions.  

 

The location chosen for the West Antalya Airport is a high plateau between the small sub-settlements of Ağullu, Pınarbaşı and Çukurbağ and the Elmalı junction of Kaş. The area where the airport runway and terminal apron will be located is not on a settlement or forestry or archaeologic or natural preserved area. The distance of the selected airport location is approximately 10 Km. to the Kaş settlement area.

 

The runway is planned to be 2,750 m. long and 45 m. wide. Therefore the planned airport will be suitable for all type of planes that can operate between the prospective tourist markets and west of Antalya. 

The direction of the runway is of such that planes during landing and take-off will not be flying over the populated settlement areas in particular nearby Kaş, Kasaba and their suburban districts.

 

The planned runway and apron will be sitting on around a total of 750,000 m2, and together with the area that will be restricted around for approach and security, the total land that will be dedicated to the airport will be around 2,500,000 m2. 

 

The height of the plateau where the airport runway will be sitting is of 650 meters from the sea level and the nearest small settlement to the airport runway is about 150 meters below such altitude.

 

The reason that the airport will be international is simply due to flight security standards as well as same to be on the disposal of the tourism industry. There is no way that the West Antalya Airport and her traffic will be comparable or anyway near to Antalya or Istanbul Airports. Since there is no justifying high population in or around this planned airport at present and is not expected or likely to be in the future either. Because existing local geographic conditions and protected zones will not permit for such population growth in the future as well. 

 

The aircraft maintenance repair and parking facilities are not included in the airport planning and will not be in the long-term planning either.

 

The airport capacity, infrastructure and environment situation is very much alike at many destinations including Greek Islands where there is no mass tourism. Moreover, in some of those destinations similar airports operate only during the summer tourist season and do not even contain proper terminal buildings.

 

The new airport runway and apron is planned to be located on a high plateau which is approximately 12,000,000 m2 and mainly covered with rocks and maquis. There are no settlements on this high plateau (except few houses). The majority of the land on this high plateau is owned by the Forestry Department and has no actual forest grown on it simply because of its rocky nature. Forestry Department owned land is 6,387,000,000 m2 and its registry number is 163/1. There is no likelihood that planes landing and taking off there will damage or harm any of the plantations on this high plateau simply because there is only maquis, some acorn trees and shrubs. Moreover this high plateau where the runway will be located is somewhat 150 meter higher than the surrounding topography, therefore it is not possible for the planes to harm any of the plantation and agriculture on these lower surrounding areas, directly or indirectly. Contrarily the security and approach zone that will be declared around the high plateau where the runway and apron will be situated will be creating a somewhat additional protection area for the surrounding cultivated grounds at where no settlements can be built.

 

There is only one archaeological monument which is an ancient water reservoir located on the high plateau where the airport and apron will be built. None of the airport units are planned to be built on such archaeological monuments. Contrarily it will be on the side of the terminal building at where same will be protected, restored and better displayed to the public. There are no other historic sites on the plateau that is to be negatively affected at all.

 

Also the Forestry-owned land on this high plateau cannot be open for residential settlements or for any other use due to the stringent forestry law of Turkey. Furthermore its surrounding geographical area cannot be considered as a prospective settlement growth area of Kaş as well due to the high number of archaeological and natural protection zones as well as the harsh topography.

 

The airport will enable tourists to reach this region with ease. Also the locals will benefit from the airport for their travel needs. Direct air travel opportunity will drive more mid to high income tourists to this area whom will bring more wealth to locals as the demand for boutique hotels and the villa pensions, as well as yachting will boost. Increase on wealthy tourist arrivals will also help the local agriculture, farming and respective business developments consequently prosperity.

 

The only area that the Ministry of Tourism that has found and declared as a tourism centre in the west of Antalya is in Demre as there are no other large areas in the region because of the high number and extensive amount of archaeological and natural protection zones. However the Ministry of Tourism has endeavored the nature and type of tourism in the region and has restricted the number of beds to 600 for the each allocated land in the centre at where there are 8 allocations in total each being approximately 50,000 m2.

 

Furthermore the airport will also enable 2 alternative tourism developments in the north of this region which are namely highland eco-tourism and golf tourism.

 

As a result, the West Antalya Airport will prosper the locals in the region as well as assist the development of the economy while improving the living standards of the entire population in the region.