Frankfurt am Main/Antalya, September, 2022 – SunExpress, a joint venture of Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines, has carried over seven million passengers on its flights since the beginning of the year with an average seat load factor of 86 percent. This represents a twofold increase in passenger numbers compared to the same period last year. Moreover, it even exceeds the pre-pandemic numbers of 2019. According to current forecasts, the airline will exceed its annual target of 10 million passengers in 2022.

“We are proud to have made it through this summer’s peak period without any flight cancellations caused by a lack of ground handling staff across Europe. We were able to fly a record number of passengers to their well-deserved vacations,” said Max Kownatzki, CEO of SunExpress. “We expect the strong travel demand from the UK to Turkey to continue in the upcoming period. We’re looking forward to introducing our new routes to and from Newcastle and Bristol next year to further expand our footprint in the United Kingdom.”

In 2022, the leisure specialist has implemented its historically largest route and network expansion in the UK. With this expansion, SunExpress has connected five important British gateways with popular and sunny destinations in Turkey. The airline offers direct flights from Gatwick, Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Luton to Antalya, Dalaman, Izmir, Ankara and Gaziantep. In the upcoming year, the carrier will expand its flight portfolio from the United Kingdom: Newcastle and Bristol will join its route network for the summer 2023 season.

To meet the continued robust demand for leisure travel, SunExpress has once again increased capacity for September and October. 1000 additional flights are planned in total across all routes. The carrier has offered an additional 10,000 seats for the UK market in September and October.

With more than 30 years of experience in the aviation industry, SunExpress offers non-stop flights on over 175 routes across 30 countries.