Turkish Cargo beams a new growth chapter for 2015

Turkish Cargo is the airfreight division of Turkey’s flag carrier, Turkish Airlines which is the world’s leading carrier with a vast stretch of a network that covers Asia, Europe, the Americas and Africa. Rising strong and growing fast with the youngest fleet in Europe, the airline has achieved great milestones and today resonates as a 4-star airline.
In its 8th decades of a journey, the airline took on many challenges while continuously achieving higher standards of service level keeping its focus on the customer. Turkish Cargo has been very succesfully able to adapt quickly both commercially and operationally. Its constant goal has been to penetrate new markets in keeping with its ability to deliver a global comprehensive route network. Most recently, the airline added its second destination in Canada, after Toronto, by inaugurating flights to Montreal, as its 10th destination in the Americas, upgrading its number of destinations served to 261.
On the cargo side of its operations, most recently Turkish Cargo has commenced operations between its cargo-base in Istanbul to Hyderabad city in India. The Asian-hub for cargo at Rajiv Gandhi International airport is a key market, connecting Hyderabad and its catchment area to 261 destinations in Europe, North and Latin America, Africa & CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries through the airline’s cargo hub located in Istanbul. Turkish Cargo will operate its Airbus A330-200 freighters once a week.
Halit Anlatan, Executive Vice president for cargo states, “We have witnessed about 20% increase in tonnage as compared to last year. We want to not only see an increase in cargo traffic but also the yields. To achieve this, we have cautious optimism as the aviation industry is always a challenging industry. We will increase capacity on those sectors that we envisage a greater market demand.”
In the coming years, the airline believes in the growth potential of the emerging market of Africa and sees an exponential demand for capacity over the last four years. “From 10 destinations to 42 now, it is a very crucial market for us. We are developing a strategy for growth here which involves using some narrow body aircraft and some freighters. Starting from 2015, we will focus on new destinations with our narrow bodies and look for more opportunities for increasing freighter capacity” says Anlatan with optimism. “The African market gives us so much synergy in order to make our business worldwide” continues Anlatan.
Turkish Cargo is looking to be truly global by penetrating new markets, while in keeping with good safety practices in times where security is paramount. Anlatan is a strong advocate of owning and implementing a transparent system for the management of airfreight. He says “It is critical that we accelerate e-freight. For the shipments ex Turkey, Turkish Cargo E-AWB volume reached over 35 percent! If every country goes forward with e-freight practices at this remarkable rate, the future of implementing the E-AWB is close.” 