With the Babadağ cable car project, interest in the paragliding festival will be more intense: 14 athletes from 40 countries participated in the 600th Air Games Festival. The construction of the cable car, which will increase the annual capacity to 500 thousand people, has also started in Babadağ.
The 14th International Ölüdeniz Air Games Festival, which was organized in the Fethiye town of Ölüdeniz this year, attracted great attention. Approximately 40 athletes from 600 countries breathed their breath with the unique beauty of the world-famous thousand 900 meters Babadağ. Within the scope of the festival, as well as singles (single) and tandem (double) paragliding jumps, paramotor, sail wing and remote control aircraft, and the world-famous aerobatic pilots showed a visual feast in the sky. Tourists sunbathing on the beach of Ölüdeniz, where the air temperature reaches 30 degrees, tried to view dozens of paratroopers passing by at sunset with cameras. Some holidaymakers, who jumped for the first time with paragliding, said that they were a little scared at first but enjoyed greatly.
Fethiye District Governor Ekrem Çalık said that the district is one of the corners of the world and said, “Babadağ is like a mountain of gold. From the mountain where 62 thousand jumps were made with paragliding last year, this number has reached 72 thousand so far this year. We expect it to reach 75 thousand by the end of the year. Paragliding provides a serious economic input and brings significant tourism dynamism to the region. "We will expand the tourism season by opening runways at lower altitudes," he said.
Ölüdeniz Mayor Keramettin Yılmaz, on the other hand, said that they started to work to build a cable car between Ölüdeniz and Babadağ and said, “With the project, which will be completed in 9 years for 2 million Euros, we think that 500 thousand people will go to Babadağ to parachute, watch the view of Ölüdeniz or have a picnic”. Fethiye Power Union Company Manager Akif Arıcan, who runs the ropeway project and is also the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Fethiye Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said, “In Babadağ, the flight instruction prepared by the Turkish Aeronautical Association is applied. "A fully equipped ambulance works with the National Medical Rescue Association in the center where flight safety is prioritized."