It’s set to be a record year for the National Carrier of Turkiye with Turkish Airlines aiming to become the 6th most valuable airline in the world. Currently boasting a fleet of around 390 aircraft, and flying to 342 destinations it already has a market value of €10bn euro’s making it the 10th most valuable however a push towards an increased capacity in tourist numbers, an increase in the number of aircraft and an increase in the number of destinations should help the airline reach it’s commercial goal by the end of 2024.
Double digit growth over the last 20 years has massively helped their success, along with the construction of the new Istanbul Airport which not only allowed the Cargo arm of the company to excel, but it also solved capacity issues expanding previous take-off and landing schedules to 120 per hour. Add to that a strong investor pledge who snapped up shares at a huge increase of 625%, and you’ve got a fantastic recipe for success… one in fact, which saw Turkish Airlines’ value beat that of their nearest competitor, Lufthansa.
Ahmet Bolat is the head of Turkish Airlines board and Executive committee, and in a recent interview with Anadolu Agency he was extremely proud of the work that had been carried out to date, as it resulted in net revenues of $2.25 billion in the first quarter of 2022. He commented that ‘This is the biggest ever figure in Turkish Airlines’ and European Aviation History, thanks to strategies we implemented during the pandemic’. He went on to add that ‘Passengers also preferred to fly with Turkish Airlines due to the operational problems that were and are faced by European airlines, adding to our profits.’
In terms of passenger numbers, Turkish Airlines flew just over 72m passengers in 2022, helped massively by the increase in tourism numbers which surged to 42.2m between January and November. A further increase in 2023, should see the airline carry around 88m this year. The company is also expecting to take delivery of their 400th aircraft in February and by the end of this year they will have a fleet of 427. The expansion of the fleet size will therefore allow for new routes which will include more US Cities, direct flights to Australia and a few European destinations such as Palermo and Katowice.
Of course expansion in operations, also means an expansion in overall crew numbers and Bolat pointed out that ‘we will employ more than 1100 pilots & 2000 cabin crew by the end of 2023. An investment in our flight academy will also allow us to train around 300 new pilots per year.’
