National flag carrier Turkish Airlines (THY) went through what seems to be a remarkable 2018, throughout which it saw a significant rise in passengers.
Turkish Airlines carried 75.2 million passengers last year, the company announced Wednesday. The total number of passengers the company flew was up 10 percent year-on-year in 2018.
The airline's seat occupancy rate - passenger load factor - surged 3 percentage points to 82 percent. It said the international load factor was up 3 percentage points, reaching 81 percent, while its domestic load factor went up by 1 percentage point and stood at 85 percent.
"Excluding international-to-international transfer passengers [transit passengers], the number of international passengers went up significantly by 12 percent," the carrier said. The statement also read when compared to 2017, cargo/mail carried throughout 2018 increased by 25 percent to 1.4 million tons.
The carrier last year said it aimed to carry up to 74 million passengers in 2018.
As for December, the company carried 5.5 million passengers, a 1 percent increase year-on-year, with its load factor increasing to 80.2 percent. While the occupancy rate in international flights stood at 80 percent with an increase of 0.5 percentage points, domestic flights saw 84 percent in occupancy rate. The number of transit passengers increased by about 3 percent, while the number of foreign passengers, with the exception of transit passengers, surged by 8 percent.
The volume of cargo and mail continued its double-digit growth trend achieved in previous months and increased by 20 percent in December compared to the same period last year. "The main contributors to this growth in cargo/mail volume are North America and Africa with 33 percent and Far East and Europe with a 17 percent increase," the statement read. In December, passenger occupancy increased by nearly 2.5 points in Africa and 1 point in North America, the Far East and the Middle East, each compared to the same period of the previous year. Founded in 1933, THY currently flies to over 300 destinations in more than 120 countries, holding the title of the airline that flies to the most countries in the world. Last year, the airline carried 68.6 million passengers with a 79.1 percent seat occupancy rate.
