Turkish Cargo Incorporates All of Its Operational Processes in SMARTIST, its New Home

Raising its bar further by interconnecting its wide flight network that sweeps the continents with Turkiye’s unrivaled geographical advantage, Turkish Cargo now incorporates all its air cargo transportation operations via SMARTIST, the mega cargo facility.

Having moved the cargo operations, it carries out by means of the passenger flights, to the Istanbul Airport following its opening in April 2019, Turkish Cargo had continued its freighter operations at Ataturk Airport. Since its infrastructure has been made completely available, the air cargo brand also moved its freighter operations to the mega cargo facility at the Istanbul Airport by means of a relocation operation that took 72 hours. After bidding goodbye to Ataturk Airport during a massive relocation, Turkish Cargo will from now on carry out all its operational processes from SMARTIST, the new hub for the air cargo logistics.

Regarding the start of the full-capacity operation of SMARTIST, Turhan Ozen, chief cargo officer of Turkish Airlines, remarked as follows; "During the last three years, we carried out a highly substantial operation in both of our hubs. While we made use of our freighters at the Ataturk Airport, we benefited from our passenger aircraft and the paxfre capacity at the Istanbul Airport. We performed approximately 30,000  flights, 23,000 of which were performed by making use of our freighters and 6,000 of which were by paxfre, and we transported more than 4 million air cargo shipments, 2.5 million tons of which were transported from/to the Ataturk Airport and 1.8 million tons of which were transported from/to the Istanbul Airport.

"Now, we are gathering the air cargo operations which we have been carrying out triumphantly on 'dual hub' basis without compromising our service quality, under a single roof at the Istanbul Airport. Thanks to SMARTIST, our new home with all of its processes equipped with autonomous and robotic systems, we as Turkish Cargo, the air cargo bridge of Turkey, are now ready for the future more than we have been ever before."

The New Hub for the Global Logistics

SMARTIST, which is designed to serve as the biggest industrial building under a single roof at the Istanbul Airport, will achieve an annual capacity of 4 million tons at an area of 340.000 square meters upon the completion of all its phases. The facility, equipped with the smart technologies such as Augmented Reality, Automatic Storage Systems, Robotic Process Automation and Unmanned Ground Vehicles, will take the unique service quality of Turkish Cargo much further in respect of operational speed and quality. The mega facility will also highlight the intercontinental location of Istanbul and serve as a gate that is excellent for the trade between the East and the West. Thus, it will be ensured that Istanbul becomes the logistics center in the world by directing a major portion of the air cargo traffic in the world to the new Hub at the Istanbul Airport.

Relocation of 4,125 Equipment of 80 Various Types

As part of the ultimate relocation operation, monitored simultaneously by the senior executives of Turkish Cargo, TGS and the moving company at the Relocation Control Center established at the Ataturk Airport, 160 services were performed by 50 trucks. During the operation, whereby trucks covered a distance of approximately 16 thousand kilometers, corresponding to the distance between Turkey and New Zealand, 4125 pieces of equipment of various types, owned by TGS and Turkish Cargo, were relocated from the Ataturk Airport to the Istanbul Airport.

A Goodbye Flight to the Ataturk Airport

Turkish Cargo aircraft, which have departed for the last time from the Ataturk Airport, which hosted Turkish Airlines, the flag carrier of Turkey for 89 years, landed at the Istanbul Airport upon the completion of their international routes.  Following the massive relocation, Turkish Cargo said goodbye to the Ataturk Airport by means of its ISL-KRT (Ataturk Airport - Khartoum, Sudan) flight, numbered TK6455, which was operated by Airbus 330F aircraft.