Turkey’s flagship carrier sets load factor record for August

Turkey’s flagship carrier, Turkish Airlines, carried 50.7 million passengers from January to August, the company announced on September 14, an increase of 13.1 percent year-on-year over the eight-month period. The company noted that the increase in the number of domestic and international passengers was 14.7 percent and 11.9 percent, respectively.

Meanwhile, the airline’s seat occupancy rate - or passenger load factor - surged 3.4 percentage points to 81.8 percent. “The number of landings (passenger air- craft), 310,285 for the period of January-August 2017, increased by 7.5 percent to 333,670 in 2018,” the airline said. “Cargo/mail carried during the period of January-August 2018 increased by 25.5 percent to 897,521 tonnes from 714,875 tonnes in 2017.”

August proved to be the highest in terms of load factor in the company’s history, at 85.6 percent.

“During August, passengers carried increased by 2.4 percent to 7.6 million from 7.4 million for the same period in 2017,” it said. “On top of the strong base effect from August 2017, growth in the number of passengers, revenue per kilometer and load factor are important indicators of the continued growing interest in Turkey and Turkish Airlines.”

75 million passenger goal

Turkish Airlines, founded in 1933, flies to more than 300 destinations in over 120 countries. At the end of August 2018, the airline had 326 aircraft - 92 of them wide-body along with 216 narrow-body and 18 cargo planes. Last year, the airline carried 68.6 million passengers with a 79.1 percent seat occupancy rate. According to the airline’s year-end targets, the company expects to carry 75 million passengers - including 33 million on domestic routes and 42 million on international routes - with around an 81 percent passenger load factor.

The airline earned TRY 24.4 billion ($5.9 billion) in total revenue in the first half of this year with nearly 25,000 staff, including more than 4,500 pilots.

Valued at TRY 25.3 billion ($4.2 billion), a total of 50.88 percent of the airline’s stocks are publicly traded on the Borsa Istanbul stock exchange while the rest are owned by the Turkey Wealth Fund.