Çukurova International Airport (COV) opened in August 2024 about 35 km from Adana city center, replacing the old in-city Şakirpaşa airport. Because it is farther out, ground transport costs more than it used to — here is what to expect in 2026.
Havamaş shuttle bus (cheapest)
The official Havamaş airport shuttle is the budget option, serving Adana (Seyhan, Çukurova University), Tarsus, Mersin (via Mezitli) and Osmaniye.
Fixed-price private transfer
COV Seyhan
From€173for 2 passengers
Other destinations
Havamaş sets its own fares and revises them regularly, so any figure printed here would be out of date before long — check the current fares and departure times on havamas.com, or at the shuttle desk in arrivals, where you buy your ticket. Children travel at a reduced fare; confirm the age bands at the desk.
Services are timed to flights rather than to a clock-face timetable, so match the schedule against your own arrival time. The Adana run takes about 40-50 minutes; Mersin is over an hour.
Metered taxi
Taxis run on the meter, and the tariff is set by Adana Büyükşehir Belediyesi's UKOME rather than negotiated with the driver. It has three parts: an opening fare, a per-km rate, and a waiting-time rate that applies when the car is stopped or crawling. There is also a minimum fare for short trips, which is irrelevant at this distance.
The last full tariff the municipality published was 35 TL to start plus 40 TL per km (Adana Büyükşehir Belediyesi UKOME, council decision 13 March 2025). Work your own trip out from that: at ~35 km, central Adana passes 1,400 TL on the distance component alone, before waiting time in traffic. The same tariff applies to Tarsus and the Adana otogar, so those fares scale with their own distances.
Two warnings. First, the tariff has been raised since that decision, so treat those figures as a floor and check the current rate before you travel. Second, the distance alone makes this far pricier than the old airport's 4 km hop, whatever the tariff of the day.
Pre-booked private transfers
The point of a pre-booked transfer here is that the price is fixed when you book — you see it before you pay, rather than watching a meter. Prices depend on the vehicle, the distance and the day, so quote your own route rather than trusting a number in a guide.
The distances are what matter for the comparison: central Adana ~35 km, Tarsus a shorter run, Mersin about 50 km, Osmaniye about 90 km, İskenderun / Antakya about 110-120 km, and the Cappadocia area 250+ km north. For anything beyond central Adana, a fixed price is easier to plan than a climbing taxi meter.
Why it costs more than the old airport
Adana Şakirpaşa sat 4 km from the centre, so a taxi was a short, cheap hop. Çukurova is a modern regional hub built out of town, ~35 km away. That distance is the whole story: on a metered tariff the fare scales with the kilometres, so budget considerably more for the ride and consider the shuttle or a pre-booked transfer rather than defaulting to a taxi.
Currency and payment
Taxis operate in Turkish lira; some accept contactless but cash is more reliable. ATMs and exchange are in the terminal. Havamaş tickets are paid at the desk or online. Pre-booked transfers can usually be paid online in advance by card.
Bottom line
Budget travellers heading to central Adana, Tarsus or Mersin should take the Havamaş shuttle — it is far and away the cheapest option. For door-to-door comfort, a specific hotel, a night arrival, or an onward trip to Mersin or Hatay, a pre-booked transfer is the better value because the price is settled upfront. A taxi works but, on a metered 35 km run, it is now the most expensive way into Adana.