Pegasus carried 32mln passengers last year

ISTANBUL

Turkish budget carrier Pegasus Airlines carried a total of 31.9 million passengers in 2023, up from 26.9 million the previous year.

This corresponded to a 19 percent increase in total passenger traffic from 2022.

The overall load factor increased from 83.6 percent to 84.8 percent, the company said in a filing with Borsa Istanbul.

The international passenger tally rose 24 percent in 2023 compared with 2022 to 19.95 million, while the number of passengers Pegasus carried on domestic routes increased by 10 percent to 11.98 million.

In December alone, the total passenger traffic was up 16 percent to 2.58 million, with international passengers rising 14 percent to 1.56 million. In the final month of 2023, Pegasus carried 1.02 million domestic passengers, up 20 percent compared with December 2022.

The load factor, however, declined from 83.6 percent to 83.3 percent, the company said.

The company’s latest financials showed that its revenues grew 16 percent year-on-year in the first nine months of 2023 to 2.06 billion euros with scheduled passenger revenues rising 11 percent to 1.4 billion euros.

Its costs increased by 16 percent to 1.6 billion euros, while fuel costs fell by 1 percent to 606 million euros. Personnel costs were up 38 percent to climb to 230 million euros.

Pegasus posted a net profit of 321 million euros in January-September 2023, against a net income of 177 million in the same period of 2022.