Take off with Turkish Airlines
Connections between Europe and Asia of Turkish Airlines and the growing popularity of Turkey as a holiday and business destination are propelling the growth of the airline. Today we fly to 13 cities in the GCC and this number is only growing.
Within the last six months we have experienced tremendous increase in passenger traffic, people either visiting or flying through Istanbul.We have an average annual growth of 4 per cent in the region. Our success here has encouraged us even more to plan an expansion of our frequencies and routes of our high quality flights at competitive prices.
Turkish Airlines celebrated Eid-Al-Fitr by demonstrating its generosity and appreciation for over 100 nationalities it serves across the Middle East. Customers were greeted with an ‘Eid Mubarak’ message painted in Arabic and English on the A321 aircraft which flies to 34 markets in the Middle East and North Africa.
In keeping with the spirit of Ramadan, Turkish Airlines also offered Iftar meals to the underprivileged in 18 destinations across the Middle East and Asia. The airline also commemorated the Holy Month by launching an Arabic Call centre to serve its customers across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco.
Our growth in the region has been very encouraging. During January-June 2015 the total passengers carried by Turkish Airlines in the GCC increased by 37 per cent, reaching 1.35 million passen- gers versus 983.931 passengers for 2014. Our Business/Comfort Class passengers grew by 9.4 per cent in the same period. L/F increased by 0.3 point to 75.3 per cent and our ASK had a 32 per cent increase to become 4.3 million during January-June 2015, this was up from 3.2 million for the same period in 2014.
Our network is growing too. We are increasing flights to/from Sabiha Gökçen Airport by adding new routes from Kuwait and Tehran. We recently have launched a new passenger route to Dammam in Saudi Arabia from the same airport and a new cargo route to Bahrain as we believe these markets need more connectivity to and from Istanbul and beyond.
People from the GCC love to travel. Saudi Arabians, for example, travel to Europe a fair amount and Istanbul is the perfect city for them to visit or transit through.
Beyond the GCC, we have launched new flights to Graz in Austria and Baden in Germany, in the Americas we have announced flights to Miami and Atlanta.
Travelling has become a refined experience, and through upgrading our fleet and lounge facilities, we aim to create memorable experiences which encourage brand loyalty. Moreover, we fly to 276 destinations in 110 countries around the world, the most of any airline globally. With this sort of unbeatable connectivity, we are the preferred airline of many travellers. In fact, we were recently awarded Europe’s Best Airline at the Skytrax awards for the fifth year in a row. Part of the appeal is our superlative inflight food, too, which sets us apart from many other airlines and which many of our GCC customers have appreciated.
Our current hub at Ataturk Airport isn’t very large but we see 57 million annual passengers at that airport, which is the third largest in Europe. At the new airport, which will open in 2017, we’re planning massive business lounges for economy passengers too so that they are comfortable with Turkish Airlines from the time they check in. I think many travellers from the GCC are quite used to luxury and comfort and the new airport will appeal to them greatly.
We are hoping to operate a strict wide-body fleet to destinations in the Arabian Gulf, as we fly to all the GCC countries. Dubai and Abu Dhabi are already operated by wide body aircraft as are select services to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. We hope that soon all our GCC passengers will avail of these aircraft.
Dubai is one of the key markets in our network, and we are planning to invest more in order to serve our customers better. Now, we are flying to Istanbul with A330 and B777 aircraft, but we will be using only B777 aircraft in the future.
We run social media campaigns on Facebook, etc., to engage with our audiences. A very interesting on-board feature for entrepreneurs is our “Invest on Board” facility wherein Turkish Airlines gives people the chance to reach investors in the sky.“Invest On Board” is a worldwide programme that allows investors to meet start-ups while sitting in their seats. We are also planning on building strong relationships with the universities in the GCC to and will conduct workshops related to our “Invest on Board” project on campus.
With so much happening within the GCC, we are sure to strike a chord not only with the youth of the region but also with families and business travellers!
Dubai is one of the key markets in our network, and we are planning to invest more in order to serve our customers better. Now, we are flying to Istanbul with A330 and B777 aircraft, but we will be using only B777 aircraft in the future