Turkish Airways made public of their second order Boeing 777-3000ER jets

On Tuesday, Turkish Airways made public of their second order of Boeing 777-3000ER jets with plans to buy an additional 18 jets. This move is geared towards boosting the airways network to 251 destinations by 2015. The traffic at the airways, which at present serves 203 cities, increased by 28% in the first ten months of the year to solidify its stand as the fastest-growing flag carrier globally, overshadowing development by its major rivals.

The hub of Istanbul has seen an increase of 32% of the number of connecting commuters in the first seven months of 2012. Besides, its geographical position is a vantage point for the funneling of traffic from Asia, Europe and the Americas via Africa and the Middle East of which the airways is using to its advantage. The Turkish Airlines has an advantage over its rivals namely Qatar Airways, Emirates Airlines and Etihad Airways due to Istanbul’s closeness to the Western European markets.

This allows for single-aisle aircrafts other than larger planes to fly from its hub, hence facilitating the introduction of flights to smaller cities. Additionally, the airway benefits from having a large internal market that will help speed up its long-term expansion. The two Boeing orders worth $8.4 billion are bound to arrive between 2014 and 2017, thus bringing the total number of jets to 14 from the existing 12. This month, the Turkish Airways ordered an extra 15 Airbus 330-300s wide-body aircrafts scheduled to be delivered in 2014. The airway had a fleet of 195 aircrafts at July 31, 30 of which were narrow- body aircrafts expected to arrive by 2015.

At the end of 2011, the Turkish Airways traffic was a tad less than Qatar Airways and lower than half the volume of Emirates. However, the airway has high expectations of transporting more than 40 million commuters this year and hopes to see a growth rate that will catapult it into the top 16 airways in the world. The fast growing expansion of its connecting passenger business has eluded the disapproval aimed at it by a number of rivals at the three Gulf carriers, which are facing accusations of prejudiced funding by their government; however, they have denied this accusation. Turkish Airways is an affiliate of the Star global marketing alliance in conjunction with Deutsche Lufthansa AG, and operates a leisure airway merger with the German flag carrier.