Istanbul Atatürk Airport, operated by TAV, served 10 million passengers in its first year of operation in 2000. Ten years later, traffic has tripled to almost 30 million passengers in 2009.
ALSTEF has been TAV’s partner at Istanbul Atatürk since 1998, when the first order for baggage handling equipment was placed for the international terminal. Since then, ALSTEF has always found solutions to ensure that the facility’s performance and capacities evolve in line with demand.
During this period the number of check-in counters supplied by ALSTEF has grown from 164 in 2000 to 220 in 2002, then 314 in 2006. Sorting capacity has also been increased with a second sorter and a new sortation system for the domestic terminal. Baggage security issues in 2006 required the installation of 10 PEDS machines and six EDS devices.
Baggage handling upgrades
Istanbul Atatürk is the hub for Turkish Airlines, one of the most dynamic airlines in Europe. In 2009 the airline’s network of connecting flights required an extension of the airport’s handling facilities for baggage in transit. This included a new and innovative labelling system providing replacements for bags with unreadable labels. TAV have recently asked ALSTEF to add a further extension to the baggage handling system which is due for completion in record time of less than six months for summer 2010.
With a capacity of 3,600 bags per hour dedicated solely to baggage in transit, the extension includes three extra PEDS machines and one tomography machine for controlling inbound baggage prior to their dispatch to the sorter. The increase in sorting capacity will require 64 new automatic sortation chutes which will bring the total to 196. The SCADA system and the SAC installed in 1999 will be replaced by BAGWARE, the new software package developed by ALSTEF.