Istanbul Atatürk Airport airport was originally named "Yeşilköy Airport". In the 1980s, it was renamed "Istanbul Atatürk International Airport" in honour of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey. It served more than 60 million passengers in 2015, making it the 11th-busiest airport in the world in terms of total passenger traffic and the 10th-busiest in the world in terms of international passenger traffic. As of 2017, it is Europe's 5th-busiest airport after London Heathrow, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Frankfurt Airport and Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, having fallen from third place after a decline in passengers due to
Batman, Turkey (using highways) to Istanbul is , to Ankara , and to İzmir . There is also a regional airport outside of Batman at , which provides direct flights to İzmir, Ankara and Istanbul. The airport is combined with the military Batman Air Base. The base was renovated after the US-Turkey agreement in 1982 to make the base available for US tactical aircraft acting within NATO forces. This allowed them to patrol the region of Caucasus, Turkey and Iran without refueling. The base was then used for aid delivery and rescue missions in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War. According to