THY remains cautious about flying Boeing’s MAX jets

ISTANBUL

Turkey’s flag carrier Turkish Airlines (THY) has announced that it will keep Boeing 737 MAX jets grounded which is likely to impact certain flights this summer.

“We will not use Boeing 737 MAX jets. They will not be used in our operations until civil aviation authorities give necessary permissions,” THY said in a statement on June 24.

THY added that because of this decision some planned flights will be canceled.

The carrier said that it has a total of 24 Boeing 737 MAX jets in its fleet.

Boeing’s top-selling aircraft has been taken out of service worldwide since an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX crashed in March, five months after a Lion Air 737 MAX plunged into the sea off Indonesia. A total of 346 people died in the two disasters.

Passenger traffic

Separately, THY announced yesterday in filing with the stock exchange that the number of passengers it served declined by 4.5 percent on an annual basis to 5.87 million in May.

The domestic passenger number was down 9.6 percent year-on-year to 2.4 million while the airline carried a total of 3.5 million international travelers in the month, a 0.7 percent decline from a year ago.

The load factor was 77.5 percent versus 78.7 percent in May last year, the data from THY also showed.

The available seat kilometers (ASK) parameter moved up 1.2 percent on an annual basis to 16.6 billion.

The number of aircraft in the carrier’s fleet increased to 336 in May from 327 in the same month of 2018.

The carrier delivered 131,704 tons of cargo and mail, declining by 11.3 percent on an annual basis.

As of end-May, Turkish Airlines flies to 310 destinations versus 303 destinations a year ago.

The company also said that its seat capacity improved 0.3 percent year-on-year to 65,436.

In the first five months of the year, THY served a total of 28.55 million passengers, down from 29.4 million travelers it hosted a year ago.

Domestic passenger numbers declined by 7.3 percent to 12.3 million while international passenger numbers increased by 1 percent to 16.3 million.

The company saw 62.85 billion Turkish Liras ($12.85 billion) annual revenue and 4.04 billion liras net profit in 2018 when it carried 75.2 million passengers with a seat occupancy rate of 82 percent.

The flag carrier announced in January that it aims to carry 80 million passengers and $14.1 billion in revenues this year.

İlker Aycı, the board chairman of Turkish Airlines, announced in May that the company plans to hire up to 10,000 new personnel this year.

According to the senior executive, Turkish Airlines already hired 4,600 new personnel in the first five months of the year.