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Turkish Airlines Considers Serbia Purchase, Long-Haul Shakeup

30 September 2010 11:00 (UTC +04:00)

BakÄ±. Nicat Mustafayev - APA-Economics. Turk Hava Yollari AO or Turkish Airlines, the national carrier, will beef up long-haul routes and is considering strategic acquisition opportunities including Serbian Airlines, Chief Executive Officer Temel Kotil said, BusinessWeek reported.
The company plans to complete the purchase of 90 aircraft by 2012, Kotil said in an interview in Istanbul today. He said Turkish Airlines expects $6 billion of sales and to fill 73 percent of flight capacity this year.
As part of the expansion plan, Turkish Airlines may later consider buying Airbus 380 or Boeing 747 double-decker planes, if it increases its number of flights to New York to three per day from one at present, Kotil said. He said The company aims to increase total weekly flights to 10,000 from 5,500 now.
Turkish Airlines has been spending more on planes and flying to new destinations as it sought to close the gap on Europeâ€™s biggest airlines, Air France-KLM Group, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and British Airways Plc.
The carrier posted a second-quarter profit of 158.7 million liras ($108 million), reversing a year-earlier loss, and its shares have jumped about 40 percent in the past three months, compared with a 15 percent gain on Turkeyâ€™s benchmark ISE-100 stock index.
Kotil said flights to the U.S. will increase to 35 per week in 2011 from 10 currently, as Turkish Airlines carries transit passengers from Russia, other former Soviet countries, the Middle East and north Africa. He said the airline plans to add Montreal to its transatlantic destinations.
Other new routes include Bangladesh, Vietnam and Manila, Kotil said. He said the company is â€œworking onâ€ a possible acquisition of Serbian Airlines, declining to give further details.