Turkish Airlines serves over 24 million passengers in January-May

ANKARA

Turkish Airlines served a little more than 24 million passengers in the first five months of 2022, including 14.8 million international travelers.

Some 6.2 million domestic passengers used the national flag carrier in January-May, the company said in a filing with Borsa Istanbul.

The overall passenger load factor was 73.5 percent, down from 80.1 percent in January-May 2019.

Turkish Airlines does not provide comparable data for the years 2020 and 2021, when the COVID-19 pandemic brought global travel and tourism activity to a near halt.

In the first five months of 2019, the number of passengers the carrier served was 28.5 million, including 16.3 million international passengers.

In May alone, Turkish Airlines saw an 8.3 percent increase in its passenger traffic compared to the same month of 2019 to 6.35 million people. It carried 4 million international passengers, up 15.6 percent from two years ago, while the domestic passenger tally declined by 2.2 percent to 2.34 million.

Turkish Airlines expanded its fleet from 336 airplanes in May 2021 to 376 this year, and the number of destinations it flies to increased from 310 to 332 as of May end.

This week, Turkish Airlines was named the country’s most valuable brand for 2022 for the fifth time in a row.

The national flag carrier topped Brand Finance’s Turkey 100 list with a brand value of $1.60 billion.

The carrier’s brand value was also $1.60 billion in 2021.