The new Istanbul Airport, which contains structural sections manufactured by British Steel (www.britishsteel.co.uk) in Scunthorpe and on Teesside, has been officially opened. Destined to become the largest airport in the world, it can currently handle 90 million passengers; when services are transferred from Ataturk International Airport, this figure is set to increase to 200 million.

Richard Farnsworth, British Steel’s managing director for construction, said: “This is a phenomenal project, the scale of which is awe-inspiring.

“We were delighted to be invited to supply our sections into the airport, so it’s exciting to see it open. We’ve an excellent track record of supplying into projects of this nature, and we’re proud to be helping connect millions more passengers as they travel across the world.”

British Steel has previously supplied structural sections for Heathrow’s Terminal 5 and Muscat International Airport in Oman. Its work for Istanbul covers 76.5 million m2 and contains 640,000 tonnes of steel — enough to build 80 Eiffel Towers.

The new airport uses robots, artificial intelligence and facial recognition to minimise waiting times, as well as “the best baggage-handling system in the world”.