Turkish-German carrier hits new highs in 2018

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkish-German airline SunExpress last year racked up the highest revenue in its history while achieving record growth, said the company on Wednesday.

"SunExpress grew 10 percent in 2018 compared to the previous year and generated revenues of approximately €1.3 billion (some $1.5 billion)," the Antalya-based airline said in a statement.

The number of passengers rose 10 percent year-on-year to reach 10 million in 2018, with a load factor of 84 percent.

SunExpress CEO Jens Bischof highlighted that the company has continued its steady growth for two years in a row.

"With our strong financial structure and expertise as a leisure carrier, we will continue to be the backbone of air travel for the Turkish tourism industry in 2019," Bischof said.

The company will offer a record high capacity of 6.6 million seats from Central Europe to Turkey in 2019.

"This record capacity increase achieved by SunExpress for 2019 is an important indicator of the expected growth in Turkish tourism," Bischof added.

"We expect 2019 to be a year of records for Turkish tourism."

This summer, the carrier will operate scheduled direct flights to 36 destinations in Europe from 16 cities in Turkey, Bischof said.

He added that the company will have the largest fleet in its history with 83 aircraft this year.

As a popular tourist destination and SunExpress’ hub, the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya will be served with 3.7 million seats during the summer of 2019, according to the statement.

“Initially, we planned a 3.5-million seat capacity to Antalya from Europe. However, due to growing demand, we increased our capacity to 3.7 million with almost 200,000 additional seats,” Bischof said.

This year, the company launched direct flights from Antalya to the cities of Oslo, Norway, Gothenburg, Sweden, Eindhoven, the Netherlands, and Prague, the Czech Republic.

Founded as a joint venture of Turkish Airlines and Germany's Lufthansa in 1989, SunExpress flies to 90 destinations in more than 30 countries.