SunExpress, a joint venture of Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa, is celebrating its 30th year in aviation and tourism this year.
To mark the anniversary of SunExpress, Antalya Governor Münir Karaloğlu, SunExpress General Manager Jens Bischof and SunExpress Deputy General Manager Ahmet Çalışkan met with members of the media in Antalya, the headquarters of the airline.
At the meeting, SunExpress CEO Jens Bischof underlined that they have started work to open Antalya’s first aircraft Maintenance and Repair Center, while also sharing information about the efforts made to improve Antalya and Turkish tourism and the new destinations and flights from Antalya.
A 30-year success story in aviation and tourism
SunExpress was founded in 1989 in cooperation with Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa with the aim of supporting and furthering the flow of tourism from Germany to Antalya with only one aircraft and 57 employees. It continues its aviation journey today with 84 aircraft in its fleet and more than 4,200 employees from 35 nationalities. SunExpress, which began its operations with a single aircraft from Frankfurt to Antalya on April 2, 1990 and carried 100,000 passengers from Germany to Antalya the same year, is targeting to carry almost 4.5 million passengers between Antalya and 44 destinations, with its 25 aircraft based Antalya by the end of 2019.
The airline, which welcomed 10 million passengers in 2018, is the backbone of ethnic traffic with its tourist flights from Central Europe to Turkey, as well as domestic flights within Turkey.
SunExpress has also celebrated many awards and achievements such as Turkey’s Best Holiday Airline and World’s 5th Best Holiday Airline in 2019 by SkyTrax, Germany’s most punctual airline, Turkey’s Safest Airline by SAFA 2019 and Turkey’s Second Biggest Service Exporter.
‘The first aircraft maintenance and repair center in Antalya’
Speaking about their project to launch a landmark hangar facility in Antalya, SunExpress CEO Jens Bischof stated: “As one of the largest companies and biggest employers in Antalya, we continue to support Antalya’s economy and tourism. We are planning to make a significant investment in our aircraft maintenance and repair center, which we expect to be operational by the end of 2021. As a home carrier of Antalya, we aim to generate jobs, as well contribute to the economy of the region with this investment.”
Bischof added that the project would be a first in Antalya and the center would initially serve SunExpress aircraft and then will start serving other airlines later.
Record seat capacity and new destinations in Antalya
Highlighting that SunExpress is the airline that connects Antalya to the greatest number of destinations with direct flights both on domestic and international routes, Bischof said: “SunExpress is the backbone of Turkish tourism transportation and also the main carrier of Antalya. Every year, we increase our capacity to Antalya to a record level. In the summer of 2019, we offered a capacity of 3.7 million seats to Antalya, the capital of Turkish tourism. This year, in the summer of 2020, we will offer the largest capacity of our history with a total of 5 million seats on domestic and international routes.” Bischof added that they would also increase the number of aircraft they have based in Antalya from 25 to 27 with 2020 summer.
SunExpress offered frequency increases from Antalya both on domestic and international routes as part of the 2019/2020 winter schedule. SunExpress has increased the number of flights from Antalya to İzmir to four daily flights, two flights a day to Adana, and three flights a week to Trabzon and Samsun.
On international routes during the winter season, SunExpress has increased its daily flights from Antalya to Düsseldorf, Cologne, Berlin, Hamburg, Hanover, Frankfurt, Munich and Stuttgart, and now operates six flights per week to Vienna, the capital of Austria. Offering attractive weekend flights from Antalya to Basel and Zurich, SunExpress also organizes flights every Saturday to Paris, one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations. Starting in February, SunExpress will fly twice a week to Copenhagen and once a week to Billund.
