SunExpress posts record high revenue

ANTALYA

SunExpress, a joint venture company of Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa, celebrates its 25th anniversary with record revenues in 2014 upon the past two years of strong growth.

SunExpress sales increased by 15 percent in 2014 from the previous year, resulting in an income of 1.25 billion euros, the company said by a written statement yesterday. The number of passengers transported in 2014 was 7.3 million and the seat load factor (SLF) exceeded 85 percent.

“We have had healthy and successful growth during the last three years and for the 25th anniversary year of the establishment of our company we have broken our best record with the revenue achieved in 2014 and are now among Turkey’s largest 50 companies,” said SunExpress Managing Director Paul Schwaiger at a press conference held in Antalya Feb. 18.

“The growth achieved in recent years places us among Turkey’s largest 50 companies,” said Schwaiger: “Behind such strong growth lies the support of our 3,400 employees from 25 different countries and naturally the wealth of knowledge from our shareholders Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa.”  

Stating that with the 2015 summer season, SunExpress will begin service to a total of 16 new destinations from İzmir and Antalya, SunExpress Deputy Managing Director Faruk Çizmecioğlu also noted that 482 weekly international flights will be flown from Antalya, İzmir, Istanbul, Adana, Alanya/Gazipaşa, Ankara, Bodrum, Dalaman, Elazığ, Gaziantep, Kayseri, Konya, Samsun, Şanlıurfa and Trabzon.

Çizmecioğlu said: “We will connect scheduled flights to Antalya, which brings in the most tourists, with domestic flights to eight cities directly and in addition to the 38 international destinations currently flown to and from Antalya, we will add international scheduled service to Paris CDG, Strasbourg, Lyon, Nantes, Geneva, Memmingen, Copenhagen, Luxembourg, Amsterdam and Stockholm. From Antalya we will operate 267 flights a week to a total of 48 international destinations in 12 countries.”

“For nearly two years we have been conducting successful wet-lease operations with Turkish Airlines/Anadolujet. In this business model, we rent aircraft to Turkish Airlines/Anadolujet, maintaining the operational management, while Turkish Airlines/Anadolujet ensures the commercial management.

This service we provide allows for a more efficient and cost effective structure for Turkish Airlines/Anadolujet,” said Server Aydın, Deputy Managing Director of SunExpress Germany (SXD).

“This successful business model will now be used for Lufthansa’s long-haul program to offer low-cost tourism flights” Aydın said.