The Mediterranean and Aegean Sun Rises On Istanbul

January 15, 2008

SunExpress, which was founded by Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa, adds Istanbul to its domestic and international flights after Antalya and Izmir. SunExpress will start scheduled flights from Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen Airport by the 2008 summer season. The flights which will start with 2 aircraft, will be operated to Adana, Antalya, Diyarbakır, Erzurum, Kars, Trabzon and Van at domestic and Nurnberg, Cologne and Hanover at international flights.
 
Commenting about the flights, “The Istanbul flights will become a very strategic step to growth for our company. By adding Istanbul after Antalya and Izmir to our schedule, we aim to become the leader regional private airline.” said Paul Schwaiger, Managing Director of SunExpress. Stating that SunExpress would welcome Istanbul passengers with its 18 years of experience, Schwaiger told, “With the addition of Istanbul flights, we will be offering the most widespread domestic schedule to Anatolian cities. After the Aegean and Mediterranean regions, our passengers will enjoy flying to Istanbul with SunExpress direct flights.”
 
Excluding taxes the ticket fares for SunExpress’ Sabiha Gökçen flights will start from 29 YTL at domestic and 29 Euro at international flights. SunExpress sells tickets through its agencies, call center at (0232) 444 0 797 and www.sunexpress.com.tr web site. THY will also sell SunExpress tickets.
 
ABOUT SUNEXPRESS
SunExpress was founded as a joint venture agreement between Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa. Operating charter flights for approximately 10 years, SunExpress became the first private airline company, to offer international scheduled flights from Turkey with its Antalya-Frankfurt flight in 2001. The company further expanded its international network with its Izmir based flights, which started in 2005.
 
SunExpress also connected Izmir with the major cities in Anatolia by offering direct domestic flights, which started on March 26, 2006 for the first time in Turkey. SunExpress’ direct domestic flights quickly reached a high occupancy rate, showing that many cities had similar potential. And SunExpress added Antalya and Diyarbakır based domestic flights while increasing the number of destinations from Izmir.
 
SunExpress operates a fleet of 14 airplanes with an average age of 8.6 years and a seating capacity of 2,796 seats. After adding 4 new Boeing 737-800s to the fleet and removing one of Boeing 757-200s in 2008 summer, the fleet size will reach to 17 aircrafts and the seat capacity will increase to 3.134. Following the new aircrafts, the average age of fleet will decrease to 6.35.