Istanbul Ataturk boosted passenger numbers almost 14% to 51.2mn in 2013, the biggest gain among the world’s top 30 hubs after Kuala Lumpur, following a 21% jump in 2012.

Bloomberg/Frankfurt

Istanbul’s Ataturk airport lured more travellers than Frankfurt and Amsterdam in the first quarter, setting the Turkish Airlines base on course to establish itself as Europe’s third-busiest air hub this year.

Ataturk, Europe’s No 5 airport in 2013, boosted passenger numbers 11% to 12.4mn, edging past Frankfurt, last year’s No 3, on 12.2mn and trumping the 11.2mn at Amsterdam, the No 4, according to the latest traffic data.

The airport, west of Istanbul on the European side of the Bosporus, is benefiting as Turkish Airlines piles on capacity to tap local growth and build a long-haul transfer base. Should Ataturk cement its first-quarter standing, Frankfurt will find itself outside the top three for the first time since the 1960s.

“Growth has been enormous in Turkey for years but this will mark a changing of the guard,” said Hans-Peter Wodniok, an analyst at Fairesearch GmbH in Kronberg, Germany. “West European airports are losing transit passengers, which are the most lucrative as they spend the most in airport shops, and it’s even worse for airlines, who are losing customers entirely.”

Istanbul Ataturk, renamed in 1980 after modern Turkey’s first president, boosted passenger numbers almost 14% to 51.2mn in 2013, the biggest gain among the world’s top 30 hubs after Kuala Lumpur, following a 21% jump in 2012.

Frankfurt posted a 0.9% advance to 58mn and Amsterdam had a 3% gain to 52.6mn, according to March 31 rankings from Airports Council International. Europe’s top hubs are London Heathrow, with 72.4mn passengers last year, and Paris Charles de Gaulle, with 62mn.

Istanbul also lured 544,000 more passengers than Amsterdam Schiphol in the first quarter of 2013, only for the Dutch hub to retain No 4 spot for the year after the peak-season surge.

The three-month gap now stands at almost 1.3mn, based on figures published April 7 and April 15, suggesting the Turkish hub may make its advantage stick through the summer.

Ataturk’s 200,000-passenger quarterly lead over Frankfurt translates into a swing of almost 700,000 people year-on-year, indicating that the airports may end 2014 neck and neck.

The German hub expects 2% to 3% growth to about 59.5mn travellers as Deutsche Lufthansa, which has its main base there, uses bigger planes. To beat that total Istanbul’s full-year growth rate would need to reach about 16%.

Frankfurt’s passenger tally took a battering this month as a pilot strike caused Lufthansa to scrap 3,800 flights. At the same time, a mild winter has pared weather-related disruption.

Established airports in Western Europe are also under pressure from fast-expanding Gulf hubs such as Doha and Dubai – headquarters to Qatar Airways and Emirates - which like Ataturk are exploiting an ideal geographical location to set themselves up as intercontinental crossroads.

Like the Gulf carriers, Turk Hava Yollari, as Turkish Air is known in full, has built a major wide-body fleet for long- haul operations.

Ataturk, owned by TAV Havalimanlari Holding, in which Aeroports de Paris has a 38% stake, has also been aided as a weakening Turkish lira boosts competitiveness while West European rivals emerge more slowly from the recession.

With a 12-month rolling passenger count of 52.6mn through March, the main obstacle to Ataturk’s expansion may be its capacity limit of about 60mn. Booming demand there and at Istanbul’s secondary Sabiha Gokcen hub - where the passenger count quadrupled in five years - has prompted Turkey to award construction contracts for an all-new super-airport able to handle as many as 150mn passengers per year.

“The Turks are thinking big,” said Fairesearch’s Wodniok, who has a reduce rating on Frankfurt airport owner Fraport. “It’s a bit of megalomania, but then you do have to have the infrastructure in place before people can use it.”