Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's plane has made the first ever landing Thursday at İstanbul's unfinished airport, as part of an electoral propaganda show while dozens of workers have been killed at the construction site due to poor conditions.
The Turkish presidential aircraft TC-TUR took off after Erdoğan's election rally in the southeastern province of Gaziantep and made the landing on the 3,750-meter-long and 60-meter-wide runway.
Around 30 thousand construction workers are forced to work long hours under poor conditions to complete the huge airport project. More than 1,500 workers had blocked the roads to protest bad working conditions at the airport construction site in February.
A small number of workers was allowed to the ceremony site.
On June 15, İstanbul's third airport construction workers have penned an open latter addressing Erdoğan.
The letter opens with the lines "Don’t step in Erdoğan! We don’t want to see your face!" and reads "We are the workers of the third airport. We are working under harsh circumstances, trying to survive under inhuman conditions. Now again, just because you will come to the airport for a two-hour show before the elections, we are; forced to work 7 days a week, 12 hours a day without any leave."
As the new airport’s official inauguration ceremony is scheduled to be held on October 29, 2018, Erdoğan promotes the airport project as a political success of his ruling AKP party.
Upon his arrival at the airport, Erdoğan made a short statement from the cockpit, saying he is pleased on the construction of "a magnificent airport" in İstanbul.
