TURKISH Airlines recently won a respected gold Epica Awards prize for its high-profile ‘Batman v. Superman’ advertising campaign.

In the blockbuster movie ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’, the airline made a cameo with its Boeing 777 type aircraft. The idea was to claim Turkish Airlines was flying to the movie’s imaginary cities of Gotham City and Metropolis.

Turkish Airlines was awarded under the Product & Brand Integration category, which awards “operations promoting branded products or services via appearances in pre-existing films, television shows or other media, enabling brands to gain or reinforce status from the context in which they are placed”.

Making Turkish Airlines the first real world airline in a superhero universe, the campaign resulted in 125 million earned media impressions while ads on YouTube reached a view count of more than 30 million.

But in reality no super heroics can save Turkish Airlines, Onur Air and Pegasus from downshifting their flight programmes as Turkey’s tourism suffered a multi-million lira meltdown.

Turkish Airlines

Seen as Turkey’s flagship carrier, Turkish Airlines put 30 planes in its fleet into parking positions due to a decreasing number of passengers amid economic contractions and recent terror attacks.

Some 12 rented Airbus A330-200 model planes were transferred to Antalya and parked in front of the second international terminal. Another four Airbus A320 planes, meanwhile, were parked outside the general aviation hangars at Ankara’s Esenboğa Airport.

The number of withdrawn planes will gradually reach 30 in the coming days. The carrier currently has 298 passenger planes in its fleet.

In addition, Turkish Airlines also canceled flights to a total of 22 destinations, 17 of which were international, due to decreasing demand.

Among the canceled international destinations were Batna and Tlemcen in Algeria, Alborg in Denmark, Bordeaux in France, Karlsruhe-Baden, Freidrichshafen and Münster in Germany, Kermanshah in Iran, Genoa and Pisa in Italy, Aqaba in Jordan, Osh in Kyrgyzstan, Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Kano in Nigeria, al-Qassim in Saudi Arabia, Khujand in Tajikistan and Ivano-Frankivsk in Ukranie.  It also canceled domestic flights to Eskişehir, Tokat, Edremit, Uşak and Siirt, in a move to lower costs in the winter season, which began on Oct. 30.

The airline had already slashed its passenger forecast for the year from 72m to 63m, ending more than a decade of double-digit annual traffic growth. Having sunk $463m into the red during the first nine months of 2016, it is now on track for its first annual loss since privatisation in 2006.

It has also postponed dozens of narrow-body jet deliveries from Airbus Group SE and Boeing Co. this month.

Pegasus

(Air Transport World)

TURKISH low-cost carrier (LCC) Pegasus Airlines is undertaking a major cost reduction program as it battles to offset the continuing effect of slumping inbound tourist traffic to the nation.

It is revisiting existing contracts, reducing staff numbers and taking a careful look at marketing activities as it focuses on reducing costs.

Within the airline’s overall plan for a major fleet refresh, the company is selling those aircraft that become due for their first engine overhauls. It is also operating a sale-and-leaseback policy on major equipment items such as spare engines and cockpit simulators and has begun dynamic pricing of ancillary products.

Pegasus gave the information as part of its financial update for the nine-month period of its financial year. During the period, the Istanbul-based carrier increased turnover 4.5% year-on-year to TL2.9 billion ($862 million). In EBITDAR terms, earnings were TL540.4 million compared to a corresponding figure of TL636.6 million last year.

Significantly, EBITDAR figures for 3Q, the busiest European holiday season, were flat at TL512.4 million, indicating the continued effect of terrorist attacks within Turkey on foreign tourist bookings.

The tourism ministry said foreign tourist numbers were down 36% on 3Q last year.

Pegasus flew 18.1 million passengers in the first nine months of the year, up 7.4% year-on-year. Domestic routes saw a 10.9% increase to 11.4 million while international passenger numbers grew 1.9% to 6.66 million.

In the first nine months of 2016, Pegasus grew its ancillary revenue by 25% to TL610.9 million. Ancillary revenue per passenger increased 16% increase to TL33.8.

Despite the tricky economic landscape, Pegasus is continuing to expand its fleet, with 77 aircraft on its books at the end of 3Q compared to 65 at the same point in 2015.

The carrier is steadily moving from a Boeing 737-800 fleet to one composed of Airbus A320s. The company had 16 of the latter on strength by the end of September, with four of them being the new A320neo version.

Onur Air

(Centre for Aviation)

Turkey’s fifth largest airline by seat capacity, LCC Onur Air, has thrown its operation into reverse. After growing scheduled seat numbers at an average rate of 11% pa for four years, including growth at around 20% for most of 2016, it will cut capacity by 20% this winter.

A series of geopolitical events has weighed heavily on demand for air travel in Turkey, particularly in international travel. Weak trading conditions have also prompted the market leaders – national airline Turkish Airlines and LCC Pegasus – to halt their own rapid growth. Onur Air is bigger in the domestic market than it is in the international market, but much of its 2016 expansion was driven by international growth, particularly to Germany.

Onur’s network faces strong competition on almost every route, particularly on international routes, and this has clearly posed a severe challenge in the face of falling demand.

Onur Air is a Turkish low cost carrier based at Istanbul Atatürk Airport, founded on 14-Apr-1992. It operates a fleet of 26 all-Airbus aircraft, including 10 A330 widebodies and 16 A320 family narrowbodies. Its widebody fleet has grown from having four aircraft at the end of 2014.

In addition to scheduled flights Onur operates extensive charter services. The analysis in this report is based on its scheduled operations, using capacity data from OAG.

It is now the fifth ranked airline in Turkey by total scheduled seat capacity in summer 2016, with less than 4% of seats (based on data for the week of 17-Oct-2016, towards the end of the summer season).

It is virtually neck and neck with fourth ranked Atlas Global, and only just behind SunExpress. The market leaders, Turkish Airlines with 52%, and Pegasus with 20%, are significantly larger.

For much of 2016 Onur Air’s seat capacity was growing at around 20% year-on-year.

However data for the current winter season, which began in late Oct-2016 and continues until late Mar-2017, indicate a seat capacity cut of more than 20% year-on-year this winter. This will more than reverse Onur Air’s growth last winter and put its winter capacity back by more than two years.

In the Turkish market the adverse impact on demand of a succession of geopolitical events, including terrorism and the failed coup, has also led Turkish Airlines and Pegasus to halt their previously rapid seat capacity growth this winter.

Turkish is implementing a modest capacity cut, while Pegasus is holding its capacity flat year-on-year in winter 2016/2017, according to OAG data.

Onur is suspending its services from Istanbul to Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Munich and Vienna this winter.