Eurowings and SunExpress: codeshare heralds warming of Lufthansa-Turkish Airlines relationship?

Eurowings and SunExpress are launching a new codeshare agreement in the Germany-Türkiye market in early Jul-2025, in time for the peak northern summer period.

In many ways, closer commercial co-operation between the two low-cost airlines seems long overdue. Eurowings is a subsidiary of Lufthansa, while SunExpress is jointly owned by Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines.

However, the relationship between Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines is yet to recover fully from the ending of their own bilateral codeshare more than a decade ago.

Moreover, the market between Germany and Türkiye is much more important to SunExpress than it is to Eurowings.

Nevertheless, both sides should gain from the codeshare, which may also be a sign of improving relations between Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines.