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 recovering mobility after the pandemic it declared a $959 million profit in 2021.

 

The THY ranked second following Ryanair in Europe with its 938 flights per day in 2021. Respectively, Air France and Lufthansa took third and fourth place the same year with 648 and 617 flights. Turkey’s position as a tourism destination and a transit hub at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe gives leverage to the THY to pursue an aggressive strategy.

 

THY as a soft power instrument 

 

Turkey’s flag carrier is open to the public and traded in the stock market, but 49 percent of it still belongs to the Turkey Wealth Fund. This makes it a flexible policy tool for Ankara. The government still has the leverage to appoint the CEO of the company and influence the decision-making process. The company is seen as a soft power instrument that contributes to the image of Turkey. This can be easily seen in the officials’ statements. Addressing THY’s representatives in 2018, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that “Having a wider network than the number of Turkey’s diplomatic missions in the world, our national airline company’s success, as well as its failures, directly affect our country’s reputation. So, you must be aware of your responsibilities in the fields of diplomacy, culture, and history and acquire the necessary knowledge, in addition to your commercial mission”.

 

At the beginning of 2010, the airline company started to focus more on Africa. One of the main drivers behind this was to stimulate trade between Turkey and the African countries. As of 2021, the THY flies to 39 different countries in Africa. In an interview back in 2013, the then board chairman of the company Hamdi Topçu gives the example of Tanzania and says that after starting flights Turkey’s exports to this country increased by 349 percent. Before Turkey’s exports to Tanzania were $55 million in 2009, whereas this number became $249 million in 2021. Introducing new destinations not only stimulates human mobility but also presents alternative solutions to the problems of logistics. 

 

THY’s role in the Ukrainian war

 

The THY has played a critical role during times of crisis in republican history. The same is valid for the war in Ukraine. Thousands of Turkish citizens found themselves entrapped in the country when the bombardments started on February 24. Not being able to fly to the airports in Ukraine, the THY increased the number of flights to Bucharest to evacuate civilians in coordination with the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Moreover, 130 OSCE personnel who were deployed in the Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine were also transferred to Istanbul with a special flight from Sochi in Russia. 

 

The THY suspended its flights to Ukraine, Moldova Belarus, and the Russian cities of Rostov and Sochi due to security reasons after the outbreak of the war. However, the airline company decided to increase the frequency and capacity of its flights to St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Kazan in Russia after the European embargoes on Russian carriers. Currently, Russians who want to go to Europe arrange their transfers from Istanbul as the closest destination to Europe. Moreover, the THY restarted their flights to Yekaterinburg, a Russian city in the Urals. 

 

Trying to keep dialogue channels open with Kyiv and Moscow, Ankara seeks to downsize the impacts of the war on the Turkish economy. Russians stand at the top of the tourist list. In 2019 seven million tourists from Russia visited Turkey. Due to the pandemic, this number decreased to 4.7 million in 2021 whereas 2.06 million tourists came from Ukraine to Turkey the same year.

This article was primarily published in Portuguese on e-Global.pt on April 1, 2022.