SunExpress makes a great start to Istanbul flights,
decides to increase the number of its aircraft to 25 in 2 years
Adding Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen to its domestic and international flights bases after Antalya and Izmir, SunExpress achieved the most successful start to a new flight operation.
Obtaining more than 70% seat load factor at the first day of its Sabiha Gokcen flights, SunExpress also decided to increase the number of its aircraft to 25 until 2010. SunExpress organized a celebration festival on the honor of its Istanbul flights.
At his speech during the celebrations, Paul Schwaiger, Managing Director of SunExpress said, “Today, we are proud to take delivery of our 3rd new Boeing 737-800, flying to Istanbul straight from Boeing’s factory. While we have one more new aircraft to be delivered next month, I am happy to announce that our board authorized the company to add up to 8 more aircraft to the fleet in order to support our growth strategy.” Deputy Managing Director of the company, Hacı Say said, “We are grateful to Turkish Airlines for the great support they provided us for the start of our Sabiha Gokcen operations. We knew that Sabiha Gokcen Airport had a huge potential. Our expectation came out true; we performed the best new line opening of our company history and achieved more than 70% seat load factor on the first day of operation.”
Stating that SunExpress came to Sabiha Gokcen market to become the leader of its segment, Candan Karlıtekin, Chairman of SunExpress said; “SunExpress, a successful partnership of THY and Lufthansa will bring dynamism to Istanbul’s Asian side. Our company will create a serious competition by delivering its international safety standards and service quality at transparent and reliable prices to Sabiha Gokcen passengers. The board of SunExpress fully supports this operation and we are confident that SunExpress team will achieve another success story.” SunExpress’ Vice-Chairman and Lufthansa’s member of the board Stefan Lauer said, “Lufthansa has a longstanding excellent relation with Turkey. Together with THY we established SunExpress 18 years ago. We are very happy about our investments in Turkey and we are proud of SunExpress’ success. Furthermore we are happy to strengthen our cooperation with THY, the new partner of Star Alliance.”
SunExpress started to its Sabiha Gokcen flights by March 30th. The routes include Adana, Antalya, Diyarbakır, Erzurum, Kars, Sivas, Trabzon and Van at domestic and Berlin, Cologne and Hanover at international flights. The company bases 2 of its newest Boeing 737-800s that were delivered at the past couple of months to perform these flights¬.
About the festival
More than 600 guests from Germany and the cities SunExpress flies from Sabiha Gokcen participated to the celebrations. SunExpress organized 3 special flights to bring the guests to the festival in which every city promoted its local cuisine and culture. SunExpress broke a new ground and flew its Istanbul based guests from Atatürk Airport to Sabiha Gokcen at 18 minutes. 2 of SunExpress’ newest aircraft were the center of the celebrations in which a team of 95 people performed local dance shows and The Golden Trombone Orchestra took the stage. Demet Tuncer was the master of the ceremony of the whole event.
