Flights began from the new international flights terminal of the airport in Istanbul's Anatolian side on Monday.

The new terminal of the Sabiha Gokcen International Airport in Istanbul's Anatolian side started serving passengers with the first international flights of Turkish Airlines (THY) and SunExpress, a joint venture of Turkish Airlines and Germany's Lufthansa.

"SunExpress has five aircraft in the new terminal building, and we will add another to our fleet soon," SunExpress director general Paul Schwaiger said during the ceremony.

Also, Server Aydin, the deputy director general of the airport, said that first THY plane from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, landed at the airport early on Monday morning with 300 passengers aboard.

"We aim to host around 8.5 million passengers in the new terminal in 2010, and raise this number over 10 million in 2011," Aydin also said.

Aydin said other airline companies would start serving passengers as of this weekend.

THY will fly to Moscow, London, Cologne, Stuttgart, Berlin, Hannover and Amsterdam seven days a week from the new terminal.