Failed coup d'etat in Turkey! What to expect?

[sn26567]

Turkish Airlines grounded 30 planes, deferred dozens of aircraft deliveries, and suspended 22 routes this month. The airline had already slashed its passenger forecast for the year from 72m to 63m, ending more than a decade of double-digit annual traffic growth. Having sunk $463m into the red during the first nine months of 2016, it is now on track for its first annual loss since privatisation in 2006.

The government is not helping. Its sweeping purge of anyone with suspected ties to Fethullah Gulen, the Muslim cleric it alleges was the mastermind of the coup, has led to more than 200 employees of Turkish Airlines being fired. Many worked in the finance and accounting departments, including the chief financial officer, Coskun Kilic, who told Bloomberg in August that the government is “destroying the corporate memory of the company”. The fallout overseas was predictable: downgrades by Moody’s, a ratings agency, and doors slammed shut by aircraft financiers. The longstanding chief executive, Temel Kotil, clung onto his job until October—appeasing the government with a diatribe about the coup plotters in Turkish Airlines’ in-flight magazine—but he too has now been eased out. (The official line is that Mr Kotil resigned, although Gulliver understands from a well-placed source that the move was less than voluntary.)

If there is a silver lining, it may be the resilience of Pegasus Airlines. The number of passengers flying with the country’s largest low-cost carrier increased by 7.4% in the first nine months of the year. Yet this may have been achieved by slashing airfares to loss-making levels. And besides, Turkey wants to be more than a magnet for no-frills travel. Later this decade it plans to replace Ataturk with the world’s biggest international hub, the Istanbul New Airport, which will eventually have capacity for 150m travellers per year. If current trends persist, filling it up may not be easy.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver ... /te/bl/ed/

[hakan]

Struggling THY has stored 15 more aircraft at Antalya airport temporarily. See the pictures in below link:

http://www.airporthaber.com/thy-haberle ... dirdi.html