SunExpress doubles its planned seat capacity from the UK to Turkey, this year

The holiday airline SunExpress has nearly doubled its capacity from the UK to Turkey for the summer season to support tour operators and travel agencies seeking vacancies.

The company, which entered the UK market in 2022, has increased the weekly flight frequency between Turkey and the UK from 74 to 136 this season, almost doubling it.

This represents an 87% increase and translates to 1.32 million seats. SunExpress, which planned 700,000 seats from the UK to Turkey last year, saw 40% of its capacity used by tour operators. The remaining capacity was mostly sold through Global Distribution Systems (GDS) as ‘seat only’.

SunExpress is also increasing the number of airports it flies to in Turkey from the UK. The company, which previously flew from Birmingham, Edinburgh, Gatwick, Luton, and Manchester to Turkey, will also operate flights from Bristol and Newcastle airports in the 2024 summer season. Of the 136 flights scheduled per week during the summer season, 80 will be to Antalya, 39 to Dalaman, and 15 to Izmir. There will also be one flight each to Adana and Gaziantep.