# Çukurova International Airport

Çukurova International Airport (IATA: COV, ICAO: LTDB) is an airport in the Tarsus district of Mersin Province, southern Turkey. It serves the provinces of Mersin, Adana and Osmaniye, as well as the rest of the region of Çukurova. The airport was built in order to replace its predecessor Adana Şakirpaşa Airport due to the old airport’s location of being in the city centre, and had no room to expand or be modernised.

## Location

The new airport was constructed at the west of Karasavran village between Çiçekli and Kargılı in Tarsus district of Mersin Province. The distance from the airport to Yenice, the main railroad junction is 7 km (4.3 mi), to Çukurova Motorway is 14 km (8.7 mi), and to Tarsus is about 20 km (12 mi). The airport is close to another project, the Kazanlı Coast Tourism Project, within the scope of Tourism centers of Mersin Province.
Çukurova is a region in mid-south Turkiye which includes the historical Cilicia of the antiquity. The Turkish provinces of Adana, Mersin, Osmaniye as well as a part of Hatay are in Çukurova. These provinces were being served by Adana Şakirpaşa Airport in the urban fabric of Adana city. However, the increasing air traffic necessitates a higher capacity airport.

## History

The construction contract was signed on 26 January 2012. According to a statement made by Binali Yıldırım, Minister of Communications, Maritime affairs and Telecommunications, it is a build-operate-transfer project. The undertaker is a consortium of "Skyline" and "Zonguldak Özel Sivil Havacılık". The builders have the right to operate the airport for a term of nine years and ten months. The minister added that the airport will have international status and will so help to increase the export of the region and the number of tourists. According to the newspaper Hürriyet, the project's cost will be 357 million Euro. When finished, it will serve to 15 million people, and the capacity will be doubled in the future.
The groundbreaking ceremony was held on 28 May 2013. In the ceremony, then-Minister of Transport Binali Yıldırım explained that the location of the airport was carefully chosen to serve both Adana and Mersin.
The formal opening ceremony of the new airport took place on 10 August 2024. Adana Şakirpaşa Airport closed at 00:00 on 11 August 2024 to all commercial airlines, and Çukurova Airport opened at 12:00 on 11 August 2024. The inauguration was done by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

## Airlines and destinations

When Adana Şakirpaşa Airport closed to commercial passenger airlines, many airlines switched their route across to the new airport for Adana, namely Çukurova airport.
| Airlines | Destinations |
| Aeroflot | Moscow–Sheremetyevo |
| AJet | Ankara, Beirut, Ercan, Istanbul–Sabiha Gökçen |
| Corendon Airlines | Seasonal: Cologne/Bonn, Düsseldorf, Nuremberg |
| Eurowings | Seasonal: Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hamburg |
| Fly Kıbrıs Airlines | Ercan |
| Pegasus Airlines | Antalya, Bodrum, Düsseldorf, Ercan, Istanbul–Sabiha Gökçen, İzmir, Trabzon, Van |
| SunExpress | Antalya, Bursa, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, İzmir, Samsun, Stuttgart, Trabzon, Van Seasonal: Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, Hannover, London–Stansted, Munich |
| Turkish Airlines | Istanbul |

## Traffic statistics

^1 : 2024 statistics correspond to the last 5 months of 2024 since the opening of the airport.