The first commercial flight to depart from the new runway and terminal at the north’s Ercan (Tymbou) airport took off on Friday morning.

The flight, operated by Pegasus Airlines, lifted off at 8:30am, bound for the Turkish city of Adana.

The new terminal means that Ercan (Tymbou) is now the largest airport on the island, with an annual capacity of 10 million passengers and a 3,100-metre runway. Construction cost a total of €450 million.

The terminal’s opening ceremony was held on Thursday, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan landing on the new runway and giving a speech inside the new building.

He called on the international community to “heed the call of then-UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who admitted there is no UN resolution that could justify the isolation of our Turkish Cypriot brothers, and … lift these restrictions”.

Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar also spoke at the ceremony, saying “the south hasn’t got an airport like this, and neither do most countries”.

The old terminal, which was constructed in 1977 and underwent renovations between 2002 and 2004, saw its last flight depart for Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen airport shortly before 7pm on Thursday.