After a brief decline
following the deadly earthquakes in February, SunExpress, a joint venture
between Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa, reported on Tuesday that summer
bookings to Turkey soared as of this month.
This year, the airline
anticipates carrying over 12 million passengers, Chief Executive Max Kownatzki
told Reuters outside of an Istanbul news conference.
Bookings decreased by
50% within days of Turkiye's devastating earthquakes, which claimed more than
48,000 lives and left millions homeless.
“We noticed large
declines in demand in the first week following the earthquake, with the foreign
demand falling by around 50% to 52%. Yet, demand increased in week two.
Approximately 10 days after the hit, demand completely returned,” according to
Kownatzki.
According to data from
the beginning of March, we had 60 percent more reservations made in advance
than we had the previous year.
The Antalya-based
SunExpress carried 10.7 million passengers last year, largely between Turkey
and European countries, with an 85 percent load factor, exceeding pre-pandemic
levels, according to data given at the news conference.
Turkiye, experiencing
high inflation and a persistent current account deficit, hopes to collect $56
billion in tourism receipts this year.
Kownatzki stated that
Sunexpress anticipated this year's sales to be 1.63 billion euros ($1.75 billion)
and profitability before interest and taxes to be 80.1 million euros. EBIT was
85 million euros last year, compared to revenue of 1.49 billion.
The unpredictability
of inflation, fuel costs, and foreign exchange rates is all very significant.
We are cautious in that assumption as a result, he continued, stressing that
the company used good hedging strategies for both foreign exchange and
gasoline.
He added that
Sunexpress will fly with a fleet of 66 aircraft this season and that it will
raise its passenger capacity by 13% while also introducing 26 new routes.