Turkish Airlines revises 2019 targets

ISTANBUL

Turkey’s flag carrier, Turkish Airlines, has announced that it revised downwards its targets for 2019.

According to the new targets, approved by the carrier’s board of directors, Turkish Airlines aims to serve a total of 76 million passengers (31 million domestic and 45 million international) this year.

In the initial guidance for 2019, released in January, the company had projected 80 million passengers.

The airline reported in August that the number of passengers it served declined by 2.2 percent on an annual basis to 42.3 million in January-July.

Domestic passengers dropped 6.6 percent to 18 million while international passengers rose by 1.4 percent to 24.3 million in the first seven months of the year.

Passenger load factor is expected to be in the range of 81 percent and 82 percent this year, unchanged from the previous estimates, the carrier said in a filing with Borsa Istanbul.

The carrier also revised its sales revenue target for this year to $13.4 billion from the previous $14.1 billion.

It foresees that average jet fuel cost will be $690 per ton this year, a downward revision from the January estimate of $715 per ton.

Total Available Seat Kilometers (ASK) will increase by 4 percent compared with 2018, the company said in the statement it sent to the stock exchange on Sept. 4.

In its January guidance, Turkish Airlines projected that total ASK would increase by 7 percent to 8 percent from last year to reach to 195 billion.

Turkish Airlines, founded in 1933, flies to 315 destinations in 126 countries with a fleet of more than 340 airplanes.

Last year, it carried 75.2 million passengers with a seat occupancy rate of 82 percent.