The Airline: SunExpress

Güneş Ekspress Havacılık A.Ş., doing business as SunExpress, is an airline based in Antalya, Turkey.[1] It operates scheduled and charter flights to destinations in Europe. Its main base is Antalya International Airport (AYT).

Güneş Ekspress Havacılık A.Ş., doing business as SunExpress, is an airline based in Antalya, Turkey.[1] It operates scheduled and charter flights to destinations in Europe. Its main base is Antalya International Airport (AYT).

The airline was established in October 1989 and started operations in April 1990 with a charter service between Antalya and Frankfurt, Germany. SunExpress was founded as a joint venture between Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa. In 1995 Lufthansa transferred its SunExpress shares to Condor Flugdienst, to group all tourist flights under a single unit. In February 2007, all Condor shares were retaken by Lufthansa.
The owners of SunExpress are 50% Turkish Airlines and 50% Lufthansa. The airline carried just over 2.358 million passengers in 2006. With 617 employees, 373 of which are flight crew staff, SunExpress is the largest employer in Antalya. Including 181 staff at the Izmir office and 23 at Frankfurt, SunExpress employs 821 people in total.

SunExpress operates a fleet of 25 airplanes with an average age of 7.69 years and a seating capacity of 4800 seats. All Boeing airplanes leased by SunExpress are equipped with blended winglets installed by THY Maintenance Center.
SunExpress is the only airline in Turkey that is ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and Ohsas 18001 certified.

SunExpress supports the Golden Orange Foundation, the Antalya Piano Festival, the International Izmir Festival, the Ayvalik International Music Academy, the Antalya Arts Festival, the Youngenc Orchestra and the Antalya Youth Education Association as part of the company philosophy to contribute to the social and cultural life of Antalya and Izmir. The company also provides educational scholarships to 100 girls as part of the “Baba Beni Okula Gonder” project and is the official carrier of the Antalya City Basketball Team.
SunExpress contributes to Turkish tourism through its membership of the Antalya Promotion Foundation (ATAV) and the Destination Izmir project, which was established to promote Izmir’s tourism attractions in Europe. SunExpress also supports TUROFED (Turkish Hotel Federation) in promoting hotels in Turkey.

SunExpress which has its principal office registered in Antalya on the Turkish Riviera plans next year to go to the starting line with a German daughter: the airline received approval from its board of directors to establish “SunExpress Deutschland GmbH”, which will be located in Kelsterbach near Frankfurt and will commence operations in the summer of 2011 with initially 3 Boeing 737-800’s. An application has been submitted to the German Federal Aviation Administration accordingly.
The German SunExpress will strengthen the existing service offered between Germany and Turkey and will operate the companies’ traditional “home routes” between Frankfurt and Antalya as well as the new nonstop routes between several German cities and 8 aspiring Turkish cities with the best of flight times for vacationers from Germany. For the winter 2011/2012 plans are to expand the fleet with an additional 3 Boeing 737-800 type aircraft to serve tourism routes between Germany and the Red Sea in cooperation with German tour operators.

Market appearance identical with the SunExpress parent company The market appearance and product of the German subsidiary will conform with that of the Turkish parent company, future service and product improvements will be planned and implemented identically for both airline companies. Sales and the commercial organization will be taken on by SunExpress’ existing Sales and Marketing Team located in Kelsterbach near Frankfurt. Executive management of SunExpress Germany GmbH and the accountable representation of the airline for the German Federal Aviation Administration will both be carried out by the SunExpress CEO Paul Schwaiger. SunExpress is working on the required personnel and management structure for the operation during the coming weeks and months, and the company places great importance on good cross cultural cooperation with the parent company in Turkey.

Turkish description below:


Sun Express (Güneş Ekspres Havacılık A.Ş.) Antalya,Türkiye merkezli bir havayolu şirketidir. Havayolu, Türkiye'nin popüler tatil yörelerinden Avrupa'ya tarifeli ve charter uçuşlar düzenlemektedir. Sun Express'in merkezi Antalya Havalimanı, Antalya'dır. İkinci merkezini Mart 2006'da İzmir'de açmıştır.

Havayolu şirketi Ekim 1989'da kuruldu ve Nisan 1990 tarihinde Antalya'dan Frankfurt, Almanya'ya ilk charter uçuşunu düzenledi. Türk Hava Yolları ve Lufthansa şirketleri tarafından kurulmuştur. 1995 yılında Lufthansa kendi payını Condor Havayolları'na (şimdi Thomas Cook Havayolları) devretti. 2006 yılında Lufthansa eski hisselerini geri aldı. Havayolu şirketinin %50'si Türk Hava Yolları'na %50'si de Lufthansa ya aittir. 2004 yılında 1.35 milyondan fazla yolcu taşımıştır. Sun Express Türkiye'de ISO 9001, ISO 14001 ve OHSAS 18001 sertifikalı tek havayolu şirketidir.

Sun Express, kuruluşundan bu yana gerçekleştirdiği 190.000’in üzerinde uçuşla 22.500.000’den fazla yolcu taşıdı. 2008 yılında taşıdığı yolcu sayısını, bir önceki yıla göre %41 artışla 4.22 milyona, cirosunu %34 artışla 406.7 milyon Avro’ya, toplam uçuş saatini de %33 artışla 77.996’ya çıkardı. İstanbul Sabiha Gökçen, İzmir ve Antalya’dan gerçekleştirdiği seferlerle, Türkiye’nin en yaygın bölgesel uçuş ağını sunan Sun Express, 2008’de iç hatlarda taşıdığı yolcu sayısında ise %104 gibi rekor bir artış elde etti.

Sun Express 2008 sonu itibarıyla, Antalya pazarında iç ve dış hatlarda %12’lik payla liderliği elde etti. İzmir’de %32.7 payla dış hat pazarında açık ara 1. olan Sun Express, toplam pazarda da THY’nin ardından %22.4 payla 2. sırayı aldı. Sun Express, İstanbul Sabiha Gökçen’de ise 1 yıldan kısa sürede iç hat pazarında %20’lik paya ulaştı.