Turkish Airlines in talks to acquire local carrier’s Embraer 190 fleet

ANKARA

Turkish Airlines (THY) is set to start acquisition talks with carrier BoraJet to buy the airliner’s Embraer 190 fleet and employ its flight crew following the latter’s announcement on April 24 that it temporarily suspended all of its operations for a restructuring process. 

Turkish Airlines Board Chairman İlker Aycı confirmed the talks to private broadcaster CNNTürk during an interview with Doğan TV Ankara Representative Hakan Çelik, but said the publicly held company could not make a statement unless the acquisition was official. 

Turkish Airlines would be interested in the acquisition if “the conditions were provided that met our fleet perspective,” Aycı said. 

Aycı also made remarks in regards to the currently employed 76 pilots and 120 cabin attendants of BoraJet. “Our CEO Bilal Ekşi is managing the talks with the company [BoraJet] quite well. If needed, we can employ pilots and cabin attendants that meet our standards. We can evaluate the human resources,” he said. 

On April 24, BoraJet Airlines announced the temporary suspension of operations to prepare itself for Istanbul’s new airport. At the time of the announcement, the company had a total of 10 Embraer 190/195 range aircrafts, including six with spare parts requirements. 

The company said around 30,000 customers with already-booked reservations with BoraJet would be able to use their reservations on Turkish Airlines flights. Aycı also confirmed this issue, noting that such customers would not suffer as a result of the suspended flights.

Turkish Airlines currently has 337 aircrafts and flies to 298 destinations - 249 international and 49 domestic.

Turkey’s flag carrier was chosen as Europe’s Best Airline for the sixth time and the Best Airline in southern Europe for the eighth consecutive time in a 2016 Skytrax survey.        

The airline increased its total number of passengers by 2.5 percent year-on-year to reach 62.8 million in 2016, according to a stock exchange filing report published on Jan. 11.