CEO's Message
A success story…
TAV: The story of a dream that began in 2000 at the Istanbul Atatürk Airport and came to fruition across a large region extending from the Caucasus and Europe to the Middle East and North Africa…
Year 2000: We set out on a journey with Istanbul Atatürk Airport, one of the pioneering examples of airport operations projects undertaken through the “Build-Operate-Transfer” model. This adventure was transformed into a major success story within a short time through a combination of intelligent strategy and skilled human resources. We first dreamt of becoming the operator of 10 airports in 10 years and realized our goal in 2010 on our 10th anniversary with the takeover of the Macedonia operation.
At TAV Airports, we continue on our way with the same excitement and determination…
Although it may appear that TAV Airports has been carrying out many complicated operations in a variety of geographies and business lines, actually only the names of our operations are different; they are united under the common surname "airport"...
Being an airport operator is a challenging business. Considering that many people from different business lines are simultaneously serving hundreds of thousands of aircraft and passengers, it is clear that perfect coordination is necessary to enable a variety of cultures to be focused on the same goal at the same time. While we manage this seemingly chaotic undertaking here at TAV, we continue to achieve success by ensuring the ability of the whole to use its intelligence cooperatively, disseminating information to all points within the company. The ability to manage hundreds of millions of dollars, tens of thousands of employees, millions of passengers, hundreds of thousands of flights and millions of vehicles in harmony relies on making the correct decisions rapidly in an environment of great urgency.”
When TAV undertook operations at Istanbul Atatürk Airport, passengers at the airport numbered only 9.5 million. Now the number of yearly passengers is approximately 48 million. Today TAV is recognized among the top 50 companies in Turkey. Behind these successes there is a large family of more than 18,000 employees who have been devoted to their work for 10 years.
Aviation is an industry which continues to offer major opportunities. There are 150,000 air traffic lanes in Europe alone. Considering that there are hundreds of thousands of aircraft and millions of passengers travelling on these highways in the sky, and there is no alternative economy that could back up or replace this one, one realizes clearly the economic value of our sector. So if we want to boost employment and create economic growth then we must contribute to the development of aviation, because no other industry can take its place.
We will continue contrıbutıng to the economy of Turkey by creating employment-based added value and turn our ambitions into reality through concrete action…
Dr. M. Sani Şener
Member of the Board of Directors
President & CEO