Turkish Airlines as a flexible foreign policy tool for Ankara
Turkish Airlines (THY) was established as a department of the Ministry of Defense in 1933. It evolved into an airline company that flies to 334 destinations in 2021. The number of destinations tripled under the AK Party’s rule from 103 destinations in 2003. The THY is one of the main drivers of Turkey’s foreign trade and tourism with its rapidly growing operations in the last two decades. Flying to 128 countries, the THY serves the mobility of people and commodities between Turkey and the rest of the world. Even during the pandemic in 2020, the load factor of the THY was above 70 percent, just ten points lower than in 2019. During the pandemic, the company focused on enhancing its operations in the cargo sector and expanded its share in freight tonne kilometers (FTK) to 4.4 percent on a global scale. This increase carried the company to sixth place in the world in 2020. Despite suffering a loss of $836 million in 2020, thanks to the momentum in cargo operations and recoveri...