Gazipaşa keeps its winter flights to Ankara: AJet leaves three days a week

Gazipaşa Airport near Alanya will stay connected to Ankara through the winter. The Alanya Tourism Promotion Foundation announced the decision by the carrier AJet on 30 September: the flights are set for Thursday, Friday and Sunday, leaving Ankara at 14:05 and coming back from Alanya at 14:55. The airline had originally dropped the route from its winter schedule from 24 October until the end of March, almost five months.

The same foundation pushed for the decision together with local businesses, and they asked for exactly three return flights a week, which is what they got. Alper Gencelli, a board member of the foundation, pointed out that a break would have hit more than tourism, because students, patients, business owners and public servants all use the route. The carrier withdrew its winter flights in the same way a year ago. When the line came back last spring the timings were awkward, with the departure from Gazipaşa at five in the morning and the one from Ankara at a quarter past midnight, and the flights now run during the day.

For anyone buying a home in the east of Alanya, winter travel matters, because charter flights stop for the season. Gazipaşa Airport sits closer to Mahmutlar than Antalya Airport, which is about 130 kilometres from Alanya, and a year-round schedule turns a flat by the sea from a summer address into a place to live all year. Yekta Homes, a developer in Turkey, completes buildings in this part of town, and you can choose among the finished residential complexes or the apartments for sale.