More than five million passengers passed through the north’s Ercan (Tymbou) airport during the first 11 months of this year, the airport’s management company T&T’s general manager Serhat Ozcelik said on Monday.

In total, he said, 5,295,093 passengers either arrived at or departed from the airport between January and November, aboard a total of 34,345 commercial flights.

He said these figures constitute a 20.2 per cent increase in the number of passengers and a 23 per cent increase in the number of flights served by the airport compared to the first 11 months of last year, when 4,407,672 passengers and 27,931 flights were recorded.

“This increase in passenger numbers is expected to make a significant contribution to both the country’s tourism and economic activity towards the end of the year,” he said, before adding that the airport is “more than just a hub”, and in fact “our country’s gateway to the world, its heart of tourism, and the driving force behind economic growth”.

The figures make Ercan (Tymbou) airport the island’s second-most popular, sandwiched between the two commercial airports which operate in the Republic, in Larnaca and Paphos.

Larnaca airport has served over 9.3 million passengers so far this year, while Paphos airport has served a little over 3.6 million.

Ercan (Tymbou) airport at present only offers flights to Turkey, with 12 destinations currently being served by five airlines, though the north’s ‘transport minister’ Erhan Arikli said during an appearance on the north’s public broadcaster BRT on Saturday that “efforts are underway” to facilitate direct flights to Azerbaijan.

He said he was in conversation with Azerbaijan Airlines over the matter, though Turkish Cypriot air traffic controllers’ trade union chairman Cem Kapisiz ridiculed this assertion on Sunday, saying that “no aircraft can fly to Ercan airport without permission from the Republic of Cyprus within the framework of international law”.

“Unfortunately, this is the reality. This is true not only in aviation, but in every field … Unfortunately, this is the prison to which you have confined us and our children for 50 years,” he said.

“The correct approach is to comply with international law, and the most likely method is a federal solution. After a federal solution to the Cyprus problem, you will not need to make any effort to attract flights to Ercan airport from any country,” he said.