During a presentation at an event in Antalya, Turkey, to mark the carrier’s 35th anniversary, SunExpress CEO Max Kownatzki shared the latest updates about the airline’s performance in 2024.
Kownatzki also referred to several projects that the carrier, a 50-50 venture between Turkish Airlines and the Lufthansa Group, is working on in order to further its growth.
SunExpress has evolved significantly since its first flight in 1990. What began as purely a charter operation to carry German tourists to the Turkish Riviera is now a much larger and more diversified business. In 2024, SunExpress carried more than 15 million passengers.
Touroperators still account for 45% of SunExpress’ revenue, but much of its growth comes from new lines of business.
SunExpress has been developing its scheduled services and expanding its geographical reach, leasing its aircraft to other operators during the Winter season and partnering with third party operators to commercialize capacity on certain routes such as Germany to Egypt and Bulgaria.
In order to support this growth, SunExpress plans to double its fleet within a decade, from the 85 aircraft it plans to operate in 2025 to 166 by 2035. With this aim, it has placed orders for 132 B737 MAX 8 aircraft with Boeing, 42 of which are firm orders, plus 90 options.
Kownatzki also confirmed that SunExpress has big expectations for the Boeing MAX 10 aircraft as a vector for further growth. The airline will configure its MAX 10 aircraft with 230 seats, a significant increase from the 189 passengers its B737-800 and B737 MAX 8 can currently seat. The MAX 10 would also provide SunExpress with the capacity to reach as far west as Iceland and as far east as India.
However, while praising the MAX due to its technical performance, fuel efficiency and low noise footprint, the CEO did not hide his frustration with Boeing’s inability to deliver the aircraft on time.
The impact of these delays on SunExpress’ plans is accentuated by the fact that its business is heavily seasonal. In this regard, Kownatzki commented that the airline had managed to find some stopgap solutions, such as extending the life of existing leases.
Smoothing out seasonality has become a top priority for Kownatzki and his team. For example, SunExpress has launched a product specific for the golf market, which offers access to a number of clubs in Turkey and a range of related benefits. Likewise, it is marketing, together with other tourist operators, a broad range of experiences in Turkey, such as Winter sports and year-round outdoor activities. In November 2024, for instance, SunExpress achieved a 90% load factor, which Kownatzki noted is remarkable for an off-season month.
Another way to keep revenue coming during the slow Winter months is to lease out more than a dozen planes for domestic operations to AJet, the Ankara-based Turkish Airlines subsidiary. SunExpress has also found a promising opportunity in the wet lease of aircraft to airlines in the Southern hemisphere.
The first such project was the damp lease of two B737-800 aircraft to South African Airways in the Winter season of 2023/24. The experiment was so successful that the size of the lease has doubled to four aircraft this season.
When it comes to scheduled business, Kownatzki highlighted the emergence of the British and Irish markets as a vector for growth. Until 2022, SunExpress had mostly been focused on the German-speaking markets, but it has since grown its network in the British Isles to 11 destinations, with the possibility of more being added in the near future.
In 2024, SunExpress added 10 new routes, and is planning to add at least six more during 2025. Most of these are outside the airline’s traditional bases of Antalya (AYT) and Izmir (ADB) and link cities in Anatolia, such as Kayseri, Erzurum, and Bursa to several European destinations. SunExpress will also add Queen Alia International Airport (AMM), in Amman, Jordan, to its network with the launch of a service from Antalya in June 2025.
SunExpress is the largest operator at Antalya (AYT), Turkey’s busiest airport outside Istanbul. But how much more growth can be squeezed out of this market at a time when other growing carriers, such as Pegasus Airlines, are fast deploying more capacity to it?
While he affirmed that the market is large enough for several operators, Kownatzki also admitted there are grounds for a deeper debate about the subject, particularly considering operational margins being eroded due to costs rising faster than revenues.
Kownatzki also noted that while the former are increasing in double digit percentages, intense competition means ticket prices can rarely increase by more than single digits. Higher costs are in great part the consequence of rising wages, a phenomenon derived, in turn, from the inflation experienced by the Turkish economy. The executive noted that airlines also faced greater regulatory costs in the form of higher charges and fees.
SunExpress is also looking into opportunities for more direct involvement in other parts of the value chain, be they in aeronautical services or training. When it comes to the latter, Kownatzki proudly referred to the airline’s training program, which has already seen 160 pilots pass through. While the industry’s labor market remains tight globally, SunExpress has already managed to cover all of its 2025 staffing needs, mostly through its in-house training and development programs, which also collaborate with several Turkish educational institutions.
Last but not least, SunExpress is also leveraging its commercial muscle in the German-speaking markets to act as distributor for other airlines. This is a role which SunExpress has already successfully fulfilled for Egyptian carrier Air Cairo and was expanded to Bulgarian airline Electra Air in 2024. Kownatzki also explained that this may be a formula for growth in new markets in the near future.
“There’s no other way than to keep working on delivering value,” he said.
