SunExpress carries some 10 million passengers

ISTANBUL

SunExpress, a joint venture of Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa, has carried nearly 10 million passengers since the start of 2023 with a load factor of 88 percent.

The carrier increased capacity for the October-December period to meet the demand, adding 15 routes to its network for the winter.

“In terms of passenger traffic, our performance exceeded our target,” said Max Kownatzki, CEO of SunExpress.

SunExpress aims to carry a total of 12 million this year, he added.

This winter the carrier will have flights between Skopje, Abu Dhabi, Sharm al-Sheikh, Sofia, Krakow and the Turkish holiday destinations, such as Antalya and İzmir, according to Kownatzki.

“In order to meet the ongoing demand for Türkiye after the summer, we increased our capacity and planned more than 2,000 additional flights until the end of the year. We will continue to contribute to Türkiye’s target of hosting 60 million tourists this year,” he said.

They have been running the Multi-Crew Pilot License Program since 2018 to train pilots, the company CEO noted.

“We provide job guarantee to graduates of this program. We will train a total of 160 pilots in the next five years, with presently 60 people receiving training in the program,” he said, adding they will employ more than 160 pilots and 400 cabin crew for the 2024 summer season.

Kownatzki also noted that they signed a dump lease agreement with South African Airways.

Within the scope of the agreement, two Boeing 737-800 aircraft of SunExpress serve on South African Airways' flights based in Johannesburg, he said.

Increasing costs in the sector is a big problem, according to Kownatzki.

“Bookings for 2024 have already exceeded the number of bookings for 2023. However, costs should not be increased just because demand is increasing. We don't pass this on to the customers,” he said.