AnadoluJet to launch int’l flights from Sabiha Gökçen

ANKARA

The flag carrier Turkish Airlines has announced that within the scope of its growth strategies it decided to launch international flights with AnadoluJet brand from Istanbul’s Sabiha Gökçen Airport starting from the summer schedule of 2020.

Sabiha Gökçen, the mega city’s second largest airport, served 14.1 million international passengers last year, marking a sharp 21 percent increase from 2018, according to data from the airport authority (DHMİ). In the year, a total of 35.5 million travelers used the airport with domestic passenger tally declining by 5 percent from 2018 to 21.4 million.

Turkish Airlines reported in December that it carried 40.44 million international passengers in January-November 2019, which translated into a 3.5 percent increase on an annual basis.

In the first 11 months of the year, the company served a total of 68.8 million passengers, a 1.2 percent decline from the same period of 2018.

As of end-November, Turkish Airlines flew to a total of 316 destinations, up from 305 a year earlier.

Turkish Airlines will open four new routes in 2020 as it expands and updates its fleet, İlker Aycı, the chairman of Turkish Airlines, has recently said.

“We finished all procedures to launch flights to Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, Newark, New Jersey and Vancouver in 2019,” he noted.

Beside new destinations, he said the airline will also focus on frequency depth.

Pegasus Airlines has been using Sabiha Gökçen as its main hub of operations.

Pegasus announced on Jan. 8 that it saw a 0.3 percent annual decline in the number of passengers it carried to 29.9 million in 2019.

The number of domestic passengers dropped 11.5 percent on an annual basis to 15.7 million, while the number of international passengers rose by 17.2 percent to 13.7 million last year.