Aircraft losing height on their way in, nearest first. On the track at the right of each row, the airport is the tick at the far left and the scale runs out to 60 nm. The time shown is straight-line distance at the aircraft's current groundspeed, so it reads short: real approaches are flown around a pattern, not direct. The 60 nm radius also catches light aircraft and gliders working other airfields nearby, so not every row is bound for Istanbul. Positions come from a volunteer ADS-B receiver network, so coverage is best at altitude and thins out close to the ground.

Aircraft still in the climb after departure, lowest first.

All five runways at Istanbul Airport are parallel and share the same alignment, 359.15° / 179.15° true. The 16, 17 and 18 numbering exists to tell five parallel strips apart, not because they point in different directions. That means a ground track can show which way the airport is running, but it cannot single out which of the parallel runways an individual aircraft is using.

• 17L35R4,100 m
• 17R35L4,100 m
• 16L34R3,750 m
• 16R34L3,750 m
• 18363,060 m

A green bar marks the ends facing the direction currently in use. Runway dimensions are from the Turkish AIP (DHMİ, AD 2 LTFM), baseline 2026-01-22. Whether an individual runway is open at this moment needs a NOTAM, which no free public feed currently provides.

METAR LTFM ----------

Temperature

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Dew point

—

Humidity

—

Visibility

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QNH

—

Cloud

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Forecast · TAF

IATA / ICAO

IST / LTFM

Elevation

325 ft · 99 m

Reference point

41.2753°N 28.7520°E

Time zone

Europe/Istanbul · UTC+03:00

Runway alignment

359.15° / 179.15° true, all five parallel

Magnetic variation

6.1° east

Longest runways

4,100 m · 13,451 ft (17L/35R and 17R/35L)

Shortest runway

3,060 m · 10,039 ft (18/36)

Passengers, 2025DHMİ, final

84,513,937

Aircraft movements, 2025DHMİ, final

549,296

Passengers, Jan–Jun 2026DHMİ, provisional

39,922,113

Movements, Jan–Jun 2026DHMİ, provisional

262,271

Istanbul and London Heathrow both finished 2025 within roughly 0.05% of each other, and each publishes figures that put it ahead, so this page reports the counts rather than a ranking.