Turkish Airlines finished the third quarter of the year with 1.5 billion USD Net Profit with strong recovery on demand and its operational agility

Global aviation underwent a quarter of increasing geopolitical tensions and global inflationist pressure while facing unprecedented operational problems. Turkish Airlines finished the third quarter of 2022 with 1.5 billion USD net profit thanks to its operational agility and ability to meet the increasing demand with its highly skilled workforce and wide flight network it preserved during the pandemic. Our company managed to conclude its fifth quarter in a row with a net profit despite the difficult operating environment that persisted since 2020.

Total revenue of our company during the third quarter of 2022 was 6.1 billion USD, surpassing the same period of 2019 by 52%. Constituting 14% of the total revenues, cargo revenues increased by 110% compared to the same period in 2019 and recorded as approximately 880 million USD.

Despite the disruptions in European airports, our company managed to meet the passenger demand by successfully conducting its operations. In spite of the inflationist pressures on the global scale, flag carrier managed to record a net profit during the third quarter of 2022 by lowering its unit expenses excluding fuel by 5 percent compared to same period of 2019. As a result, EBITAR (Earnings before interest, taxes, amortization, and rent), which shows the cash generation potential of the company, realized as 2.1 billion USD.

During the third quarter of 2022, passenger capacity exceeded 2019 levels by 16% and Turkish Airlines carried a total of 23 million passengers with 91.4% load factor at domestic flights and 85.3% percent load factor at international flights. Our fleet, which is one of the world’s youngest and most modern, consists of 390 aircraft, 260 of them narrow-body and 109 of them wide-body, along with 21 cargo aircraft.

As the Europe’s leader in terms of number of flights operated by a network carrier during 2021 and the first half of 2022, Turkish Airlines recorded a significant success on the global scale in the third quarter of the year by becoming the network carrier that offers more international seat capacity than any other. As the insufficient workforce and infrastructure were deeply felt during the third quarter, our company continued its flight operations uninterruptedly. While European carriers experienced 1.7% flight cancellations on average, this rate for our airline was at 0.3%. As a result of our country’s investments towards aviation infrastructure, İstanbul Airport and Sabiha Gökçen Airport were among the best performers in Europe in terms of on-time departures.

Quadrupling its market share in the cargo transportation market in the last 10 years, our company strengthened its success by being the world’s fourth biggest air cargo carrier according to IATA’s 2022 August data. Moving to SMARTIST, new cargo operations centre built with high technological features in İstanbul Airport in February 2022, Turkish Cargo is aiming to further enhance its position among the leading air cargo brands of the world at its new home.

Mohammed Bessaïah