The future of travel — according to the CEO of Europe’s busiest airport

Welcoming more than 80 million passengers a year, Istanbul Airport has become one of the most important aviation hubs in the world. Istanbul Airport is Europe’s busiest airport based on the number of average daily flights, according to a November report by the European Air Traffic Safety Organization (EUROCONTROL). It was also named the world’s most connected airport in a 2025 analysis by Airports Council International (ACI) Europe, operating direct flights to around 340 destinations.

But beyond its scale and connectivity, the Turkish air hub is positioning itself as a blueprint for what the future of aviation could look like, from fully automated operations to becoming the world’s first major airport powered entirely by solar energy, Istanbul Airport’s CEO Selahattin Bilgen told Newsweek.

A Fully Automated Aviation Ecosystem

For Bilgen, the airport’s biggest achievement is not its size, but how seamlessly it operates. “The main success is having this very complex, large-scale operation with an automated system,” he told Newsweek.

He described an operation that runs largely without human intervention, despite its enormous scale. “To me, the craziest thing is having more than 100 systems working in integration,” Bilgen said. “It really excites me to see that we handle nearly 300,000 passengers, we handle almost 2,000 air traffic movements, and we have more than 1,000 stakeholders. We turn that operation on automatically, without human touch.”

That automation extends to the passenger experience as well. Bilgen highlighted the airport’s AI-powered indoor navigation system, which helps travelers—particularly those with disabilities—move through the terminal and “find their way to the right direction,” whether that be to a place to eat or rest, or their boarding gate, he said.

An aerial view of the duty-free shopping area of Istanbul Airport.

The First Fully Solar-Powered Major Airport

Istanbul Airport is now pushing boundaries in sustainability, becoming the world’s first major airport to meet all of its electricity needs through solar power.

“That’s something we are proud of,” Bilgen said. “Currently, Istanbul Airport is the first major airport that is capable of producing its own electricity from solar power plants.”

For major air hubs, this milestone is unprecedented. “For large-scale airports, we are the first…to produce 100 percent of the electricity requirement from renewable sources,” Bilgen said, adding that the airport’s energy demand is comparable to “the consumption of a mid-sized city.”

Measured to be around 3 million square meters (roughly 32 million square feet), the airport’s Eskişehir Solar Power Plant is expected to generate 340 million kilowatt-hours of solar energy annually.

The sustainability push is part of a broader effort to reduce emissions across the entire airport ecosystem. “This also leads the way to help us to achieve net zero not only for iGA [Istanbul Airport] but also all the companies operating in the airport system,” Bilgen said. “So, the goal is to also have net zero [emissions] achieved by all companies operating within the Istanbul Airport system.”

In a statement released in August, the airport said it completed 2024 with greenhouse gas emissions 1.4 percent lower than the previous year and 10.5 percent below year-end forecasts. The airport, which is committed to reaching net zero emissions across all ground operations by 2050, also revised its 2030 renewable energy target from 50 percent to 90 percent.

A view of a duty-free shopping area of Istanbul Airport.

Rethinking How Travelers Reach the City

Beyond energy and automation, Bilgen believes the future of aviation will also be shaped by how efficiently airports connect with the cities they serve. He hopes to see “more smart air travel connectivity between cities and airports” and said “advanced air mobility is a specialized area the industry is really focusing on.”

The problem, he explained, is familiar to travelers everywhere. “It’s unacceptable to come to a city in three or four hours from the other part of the world but spend another two to three hours trying to reach your destination within the city,” Bilgen said. So, the industry is focusing on “air taxi” solutions, or “flying cars,” he noted.

While progress has been made, there is still significant room for improvement. “The vehicles should have more people to carry,” Bilgen said, noting that current flying car designs typically seat “two or four people.” He also pointed to a limited range in travel, saying current models can only go around 100 kilometers (around 62 miles) or so.

However, he believes automation could unlock their full potential. “Once they are automated, the number of people it can carry will increase,” Bilgen said, adding that “we already have the whole technology for full automation.”

Despite the challenges, Bilgen sees air taxis as inevitable. “There is a real need for development,” he said. “So sooner or later, in my opinion, it will happen.” He emphasized, however, that operational safety will be critical as the technology evolves.

Sustainability as the Next Frontier

Bilgen believes sustainability will be the second major force shaping aviation’s future. “The second big thing for aviation will be sustainability issues,” he said.

While airlines are currently focused on reducing emissions through sustainable aviation fuel, Bilgen said building electric aircraft will be a bigger focus in the longer term, noting that “huge research and development efforts are ongoing.”

Looking ahead 20 to 30 years, he believes those advancements will fundamentally change air travel. “So, both airlines and airports should deal with these sustainability issues,” Bilgen said. “In a scenario where aircraft can be electric, and air travel becomes carbon neutral, then the sky will be the real limit” for the industry, he said.

Selahattin Bilgen, the CEO of Istanbul Airport.

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