Since then, nine Ministers of Transport and eight Prime Ministers have been in office, and statements have been made many times that the new Ercan Terminal will open at the end of the year.
The Ercan Airport contract, which was opened to civil air traffic on February 3, 1975 and transferred for 25 years, expires on February 13, 2040.
Ercan Airport has been operated by T&T Ercan Airport Management Construction Industry and Trade Company Limited since 1 January 2013 after the privatisation.
Ersan Saner, who was the Minister of Transport at that time, announced that “Ercan Airport, which will be built completely new, will be completed in less than the legal period of four years” .
Recently, the Minister of Public Works and Transport, Okuliye Canaltay, gave a new date for the Ercan Airport construction, which was heavily involved with privatisation, indicated April 2022.
Over the last five years since construction of the new terminal began, a number of different dates have been offered for completion.
Minister of Public Works and Transport Canaltay said that completion of the new terminal is most likely to be after April, 2022.
The minister also admitted that “The [project] has dragged on for years” and asked, “Why are there bureaucratic obstacles in this matter? Or is it the state’s failure to fulfill its obligations?” Answering his own question, he said “It’s both of them… The state also had its obligations, it did not fulfill them”. In order to achieve this end, he had set up a separate team and worked on the project weekly, he said.
Turkey was also following events closely, the minister said.
“While an airport in Turkey is being completed in six months, we have not been able to complete an airport for six years, eight-nine years. The reasons for these should be investigated and shared with the public.”
Canaltay also said that with the completion and opening of the new terminal, a serious contribution would be made to the country’s economy and tourism, and that there is nothing serious that the state has not done.
Stating that there was no problem with profit sharing and that the Ministry of Finance was involved in these issues, Canaltay made these statements in the Headline + programme on BRT.
Timeline
- T&T Airport Operations, which won the tender for Ercan Airport on April 24, 2013, stated that the foundations of the new Ercan Airport would be laid within this year and that it would be completed one year before the time specified in the tender contract.
- The company announced that with an investment of 300 million Euros, in a period of 3.5 years, it would bring an airport to the TRNC that the Turkish Cypriot people would be proud of and put it into service.
- On February 12, 2015, the foundation of Ercan State Airport’s new runway, terminal building and ring roads were laid.
- On October 19, 2016, a ceremony was held in the construction area of the Ercan new terminal building, the construction of which was announced to have started, and the foundation was laid.
- The Minister of Public Works and Transport at the time, Kemal Doğru, stated that the Ercan Airport Project would be completed in the second half of 2018 and the ribbon would be cut.
- Construction of the new terminal building had stalled in late 2017. The reason for this was the re-determination of the unit prices of materials in iron and mold works.
- On April 12, 2019, the Minister of Public Works and Transport, Tolga Atakan, announced that they aimed to complete the runway by the end of the summer and the terminal by the end of the year.
- However, after 2019, that target was not achieved, and the construction was not completed. One of the teams carrying out the project stopped the work on the grounds that it did not receive payment.
- A new date of May 2020 was given for completion.
- On May 19, 2021, then Prime Minister Ersan Saner announced that the new terminal at Ercan Airport would be opened to the public at the end of 2021 or at the beginning of 2022.
- On September 9, 2021, Minister of Public Works and Transport Canaltay stated that the works on the terminal at Ercan were continuing at full speed, and that the aim was to open it on November 15, 2021.
- On 29 December 2021, Minister of Public Works and Transport Canaltay, announced that the construction of the new terminal at Ercan is likely to be completed after April 2022.