Turkey lays the foundation stone for Europe's first artificial island airport

Turkey’s Minister for Transportation, Binali Yildirim, has laid the foundation stone for an airport to be built on an artificial island in the Black Sea between the Turkish provinces of Ordu and Giresun. Ordu-Giresun (OR-GI) Airport will be the first of its kind in Europe and only the second in the world.

Yildirim said that the airport’s construction will take around 528 days and cost $150m. The length of the runway will be three kilometres; the first of the estimated 2.5 million passengers a year are expected to use it in 2014.