- Özgür Töre
Türkiye's national flag carrier Turkish Airlines has resumed flights from Hatay Airport in the country’s earthquake-hit southern region.
"Our flights from Hatay Airport have resumed," Yahya Ustun, Turkish Airlines’ senior vice president for media relations, said on Twitter.
Flights made between Feb. 13-19 will require advance reservation to facilitate the evacuation process, Ustun added.
Passengers without reservations will also be accepted in the case of vacant seats, he noted.
Hatay Airport, whose runway was damaged because of the earthquakes that struck the region last Monday, had been closed to flights. The damage was repaired with the feverish work of the İGA construction and technical teams who arrived in the region after the earthquakes.
According to the statement made by the company, the works on the priority two-kilometer section of the runway of Hatay Airport, which is of vital importance for the delivery of logistics aids to the disaster area, were completed as of Sunday, February 12; made ready for operation.
TAV and Ankara Metropolitan Municipality teams also supported the repair work.
At least 29,605 people were killed by the two massive earthquakes, the country's disaster agency said Sunday.
The magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 quakes affected more than 13 million people across 10 provinces, including Hatay, Gaziantep, Adana, Adiyaman, Diyarbakir, Kahramanmaras, Kilis, Malatya, Osmaniye and Sanliurfa.
Several countries in the region, including Syria and Lebanon, felt the strong tremors that struck Türkiye in the space of less than 10 hours.
Source: AA, Habertürk
