SunExpress: leisure airline to scale yet newer heights in 2023
SunExpress plans a twice weekly service from Izmir to London Stansted from 29-Oct-2023. This would be the sixth route between Turkey and London for Turkey's third largest airline, but its first to Stansted.
Turkey to London is a very competitive market, although this will remain a relatively small percentage of SunExpress' capacity. The leisure airline's main focus is routes between Turkey and Germany, which are the home markets for its two parent companies Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa.
SunExpress is the market leader by seat capacity on Turkey-Germany, where it has grown its seat share over the past decade. At the same time its parent airlines have lost share - Lufthansa in particular.
In 2022 SunExpress exceeded its 2019 traffic and recorded its highest ever annual passenger count of 10.7 million. It plans to carry more than 12 million in 2023.
The airline's London expansion shows that SunExpress is less reliant on Turkey-Germany than it was a decade ago, as it recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic.
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