TURKEY: Pegasus Airlines Introduces Non-stop Izmir To Kiev Flights

Turkey’s low-cost carrier Pegasus Airlines is launching direct non-stop flights from Turkey's Aegean city of Izmir to the Ukrainian capital city of Kyiv or Kiev.

Turkish carrier's first flight is on July 9, 2018. Pegasus Airlines will connect Izmir's Adnan Menderes Aiport (ADB) with Igor Sikorsky Kyiv International Airport (Zhuliany).

The flights will depart from ADB at 23.50 and arrive Kiev at 02.15.

Return flight will depart from Kiev 02.55 and arrive Izmir at 05.15.

Izmir – Kyiv flights will be performed on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays
Fares start at US$54.99 pp one-way.

Ukrainian holidaymakers have plenty of choice when it comes to accessing popular family friendly resorts on the west coast of Turkey such as Kuşadasi, Çeşme, Ozdere and Seferihisar.

This brand new Turkish destination is expected to be extremely popular with holidaymakers looking for exceptional weather, great value, and fabulous cuisine with beautiful beaches and the Dilek National Park within easy reach.

Pegasus Airlines is a Turkish low-cost airline headquartered in the Kurtkoy area of Pendik, Istanbul with bases at several Turkish airports.

On 1 December 1989 two businesses, Net and Silkar, partnered with Aer Lingus to create an inclusive tour charter airline called Pegasus Airlines and services were inaugurated on 15 April 1990 with two Boeing 737–400s.

In Greek mythology, Pegasus was a winged horse sired by Poseidon, in his role as horse-god, and foaled by the Gorgon Medusa.

However, four months after the launch, Iraq invaded Kuwait and the seven month occupation that followed had a serious effect on Turkish tourism.

By 1992, tourists began returning to the country and Pegasus grew with the acquisition of a third 737-400. The airline leased a further two Airbus A320s to meet the summer demand.

After two positive years, Aer Lingus and Net sold their shares in the company in 1994 to Istanbul-based Yapi Kredibank, making Pegasus a purely Turkish company.

On 4 September 1997, Pegasus placed an order for one 737-400 and one 737–800 from Boeing Commercial Airplanes making it the first Turkish carrier to place an order for the Boeing 737 Next Generation.

The airline also signed lease agreements for a further 10 737-800s from the ILFC.

In January 2005, ESAS Holdings purchased Pegasus Airlines and placed Ali Sabanci as the chairman. Two months later, he changed the airline from a charter airline, to a low-cost airline.

In November 2005, Pegasus placed an order for 12 new 737-800s from Boeing which was backed up with an order for a further 12 737-800s in November 2008.

The latter order has flexibility in it as the orders can be changed to the 149-seat 737-700 or the 215-seat 737–900 depending on market demand.In 2018, Pegasus tried to acquire an A380 but later cancelled the order.

In 2007, Pegasus carried more passengers in Turkey than any other private airline. In 2008, it carried a total of 4.4 million passengers. In 2013 the passenger traffic grew even further to 16.8 million passengers carried.

In 2012, Pegasus Airlines, the second largest airline in Turkey, has signed for up to 100 A320neo Family aircraft 57 A320neo and 18 A321neo models, of which 75 are firm orders.

Pegasus becomes a new Airbus customer and the first Turkish airline to order the A320neo.

This was the largest single commercial aircraft order ever placed by an airline in Turkey at that time, and was announced on December 18, 2012 at a ceremony attended by Binali Yıldırım, the Turkish Minister of Transport.

In June 2012, Pegasus Airlines bought 49% of the Kyrgyz air company Air Manas. 22 March 2013 the air company had operated its first flight under the brand name Pegasus Asia.

The company offered 34.5% of its shares of stock to the public. The shares began to be traded at the Borsa Istanbul as BİST: PGSUS on 26 April 2013.

In October 2016, Pegasus Airlines announced to offer three of its aircraft on the ACMI and leasing markets, stating severely decreasing passenger numbers.

Pegasus Airlines operates a one-class interior configuration on all of their aircraft. A Flying Cafe is available to all passengers whereby food and beverages are provided for an additional charge.

Pegasus is also considering installing In-Flight-Entertainment and charging for headphones.

Currently, only overhead screens are available on selected 737-800s and they only display a computer-generated map showing the flight's progress. All new Boeing 737-800s arrived after November 2011 have Boeing Sky Interior.

Unlike most low-cost carriers, Pegasus runs its own flight crew training centre and maintenance organisation, Pegasus Technic.

Both centres are fully licensed and are used to train new staff members both on the ground and in the air.

Pegasus Airlines is one of the official sponsors of Türk Telekom Arena, newly built stadium for Turkish Club Galatasaray SK.

Pegasus Airlines was named the cheapest European low cost airline in research held in October and again in June 2014.

Pegasus Airlines has codeshare agreements with the following airlines:

- Flynas

- KLM

Pegasus Airlines fleet consists of the following aircraft:

- Airbus A320-200 12

- Airbus A320neo 18

- Boeing 737-800 44

- Total 76

Aircraft Orders For pegasus

- Airbus A320neo 51

- Airbus A321neo 43

- Boeing 737-800 5

- Total Orders 93

On 10 March 2010, Pegasus Airlines Flight 361, an Airbus A319 operated by IZair on a ferry flight, made an emergency landing at Frankfurt Airport, Germany after a malfunction in the nose gear.

The flight landed safely but blew both front nose gear tires. The airport closed runway 07R/25L for 3 hours to allow recovery. The nose gear suffered the same problem as JetBlue Flight 292.

On 7 February 2014, Pegasus Airlines Flight 751, a Boeing 737, was the victim of an attempted hijacking by a Ukrainian passenger Artem Kozlov who claimed he had a bomb on board.

The passenger demanded to be flown to Sochi, the host city of the 2014 Winter Olympics, where the Opening Ceremony was taking place. The plane landed safely in Istanbul.

On 13 January 2018, Pegasus Airlines Flight 8622 from Esenboga International Airport, Ankara to Trabzon Airport veered off the icy runway at Trabzon, slid into the ground of an acutely angled cliff, and got stuck in the mud, which prevented the 41-tonne fuselage from skidding into the Black Sea.

All 168 people on board survived and there were no reported injuries. The aircraft sustained substantial damage.


Tourism Observer

AZERBAIJAN: Passenger Traffic At Heidar Aliyev Airport Baku Grows By 36%

Baku’s base airline AZAL was accountable for more than a half of all passenger traffic that passed through Baku in January through April (АZAL)
Passenger traffic through Heidar Aliyev airport in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, in the first four months of this year exceeded 1 million passengers.

In the period from January to April 2017 more than 1,062 million passengers flew from or to the capital of Azerbaijan, which is 36% above the same period last year.

The airport reported that over half of all passengers traveled by Azerbaijan’s national carrier, AZAL.

It was accountable for 594,000 passengers, including 158,000 served on domestic lines to Nakhichevan, Gyandzha and Gabala.

Baku Airport serves 28 airlines, including five low-cost carriers.

Cumulatively they carried 904,000 passengers on international routes, which makes up to 85% of the entire traffic for the period.

In the international segment AZAL generated almost half of the cumulative traffic (48.2%).

The most popular international destinations from Baku were Istanbul, Moscow, Dubai and Kyiv. About 62% of the entire international traffic traveled on these routes.

Other preferred destinations include Teheran, Tbilisi, Doha and St. Petersburg, accountable for 12% of traffic.

Last year Heydar Aliyev Airport handled the record 3.26 million passengers, up 8.7% on the previous year.

The share of international traffic was slightly less than now, 83.5%.

More of this traffic was served by AZAL (51.3%). The number of operators has remained the same.

The surge in passenger traffic was first recorded in the second half of the year.

In November the growth rate was 23% (231,000 passengers), and in October, 19% (265,000 passengers), 29% in September (365,000 passengers) and 27% in July (391,000 passengers).



Tourism Observer

BELARUS: Belavia Acquires New Boeing 737-800

Belarusian flag carrier Belavia has finalized the acceptance of new narrow-body Boeing 737-800s under a contract inked in 2014. The airplane with the tail number EW-457PA turned out to be the last one in the batch of three aircraft, the airline reported on its Facebook page.

The newly arrived airliner received a revamped livery just like the two previous aircraft delivered in August and September.

The new look of the airplanes is the part of the airline’s branding project.

Belavia’s acquisition of all three aircraft is brokered by the Bank of Development of the Republic of Belarus.

The carrier underlines that the new airliners will allow it to reduce operational costs and, thus, bring down ticket prices.

The Boeings will replace company’s Soviet-era Tupolev Tu-154Ms.

Therefore, Belavia sticks to its previously announced plans of switching to Western-made aircraft operations only.

Belavia arrives in Zhukovsky.

Belavia launched daily flights between Minsk and Moscow's Zhukovsky in September 2016.

Belarusian flag carrier Belavia has launched a daily Moscow service from Minsk to Zhukovsky (IATA code ZIA) in September, with evening flights departing both capitals on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays, and morning flights on the other days.

"This odd-even timetable is deliberate," reveals Ihar Charhinets, the airline’s deputy general director for marketing. "As we develop the route we are planning to add three more morning flights and four evening flights per week to eventually operate twice-daily services each way; this winter's timetable will include an additional Friday evening flight.

“We are gauging the route's popularity with 76-seat Embraer E175s, with a view to increasing capacity as required. Several flights have already been performed with 148-seat Boeing 737-300s.

On certain days of the week we will be flying bigger Boeings instead of the Embraers," he adds.

The inauguration of the Minsk-Zhukovsky service may have strategic significance for Belavia.

Belarus and Russia enjoy a fairly liberal intergovernmental agreement on bilateral air services: there are no restrictions on the number of designated carriers, destinations served, capacities, or frequencies.

The only exception is the Minsk-Moscow route, on which either side has the right to operate seven flights per week, a concession currently being used to the full by both sides.

Belavia, which already operates to Moscow’s Domodedovo (DME), is the designated Belarusian carrier for the city pair, with Aeroflot and Utair the Russian operators, and even though it is located just outside of Moscow (some 43 km from the city centre), Zhukovsky is not formally regarded as a Moscow airport.

This affords Belavia access without any restrictions.

Although the new Moscow airport remains underserved by public transport, the regional administration promises this situation will improve as passenger numbers grow over time the Zhukovsky management plans to serve 350,000 to 400,000 passengers this year and up to two million in 2017.

For Belavia, adding the Zhukovsky service to its existing Domodedovo portfolio is of strategic importance especially with regard to developing its transit traffic through Minsk.

"The Zhukovsky flight connects passengers to virtually all our European services," Charhinets notes. "We make a point of developing transfer services. The population of Belarus stands at just 9.5 million, which is less than the population of Moscow, not to mention the entire Moscow region.

The demand for point-to-point out of Minsk is there, but it is limited. Our strategy, therefore, is to go with the transfer business model; at present, more than 30 per cent of our passengers take connecting flights."

The current economic situation in Belarus has been stifling demand for direct flights. More than 50 per cent of the Belarusian economy is linked to Russia, so we are affected by the same economic processes," Charhinets explains.

The population's purchasing power in dollar equivalent has shrunk and our costs, just like those incurred by all the other carriers, are denominated in dollars.

But we cannot adjust our fares directly by tying them to the euro exchange of the day, because this way we will not be able to sell any tickets. We have to look for alternative solutions."

Belavia has been lucky in a way: because of the soured relations between Russia and Ukraine, bilateral air services between the two stopped on October 25, 2015, thereby prompting a significant number of passengers to fly via Minsk instead.

As a result, from spring 2016, Kyiv-Minsk has been the busiest route linking Ukraine and Belarus. Furthermore, an intergovernmental agreement liberalising air services between Belarus and Ukraine has enabled Belavia to increase its frequencies between Minsk and Kyiv from two to five a day, and inaugurate services from Minsk to Odesa, Kharkiv and Lviv.

Charhinets dismisses the luck factor though. We first introduced our transfer business model five years ago and we have been working actively to evolve it.

It was because of this that we managed to get a portion of the Kyiv -Moscow passengers.

We have plenty of rivals, so it is not about us having been lucky, rather about us being best positioned to operate in this manner.

Charhinets reveals that Belavia, which does not enjoy a monopoly position on any single market, has done a lot to promote and modernise its products in a variety of countries.

Amongst other developments, the Belarus airline has introduced new information technologies, joined IATA's Billing and Settlement Plan system, made sure its layover times are minimal, and introduced through fares for transit passengers.

For example, there are a multitude of possible connection flights from Paris to Moscow, not to mention direct services,he says.

However, we carry some passengers traveling from Paris on virtually every flight to Moscow. We certainly need to keep working, but we are moving in the right direction.

An additional boost to the airline's transfer business model may come in the form of a simplification of transfer rules for foreign passengers transitting Belarus, but no relevant government decision has yet been made.

There is also potential for further growth in connecting Russian regional centres to European destinations via Minsk.

Belavia's convenient geographic location makes it possible for the airline to do what Kaliningrad-based KD Avia attempted in 2007: offer Russian regional passengers transfer flights to Europe bypassing Moscow.

A combination of factors forced KD Avia to cease operations in 2009, and this business model has not been tried by anyone since.

Apart from Moscow, Belavia currently serves Russia's St Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Sochi, and Krasnodar, and formerly served Samara, Yekaterinburg, and Novosibirsk.

Restraining further development of regional Russian operations though are the high service charges Belavia is forced to pay in Russia. Charhinets reveals that the Belarus carrier is charged five times more than Russian airlines for air navigation services.

Airport handling fees are also higher, although not drastically as steep.

This price difference persists despite both countries being part of the common union state and the Eurasian Economic Union – and renders Belavia's fares so uncompetitive that it is currently cheaper to fly with a Russian carrier from a regional airport to Minsk via Moscow.

There is a possibility that this price disparity will be eliminated by late 2016: a preliminary agreement to that effect was signed more than two years ago between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, but there has been no further progress, says Charhinets.

Meanwhile, a further increase in Belavia's passenger numbers may result from the company's substantial rebranding effort from mid-August of this year.

Apart from introducing an all-new livery for its airliners, the carrier overhauled the corporate style of its offices, launched new crew uniforms, refurbished its website and re-conceptualised its advertising campaign.

The management insists that with the new image Belavia will not only distance itself from its Soviet legacy but will also mark the airline's transition from a full-service business model to a hybrid concept incorporating low-cost elements. "We are not planning to turn into an low-cost carrier completely, but we are studying and introducing certain approaches along these lines," Charhinets reveals. "Last year we managed to bring our fares down by 20 per cent; this year, we aim to achieve a further 10 per cent reduction."

BELARUS: Belavia Surpasses Traffic Targets

In 2016, Belarus’ national carrier, Belavia, outperformed its passenger traffic target. Its traffic growth hit 19.1% compared to the previous year, to 2.5 million passengers, according to the country’s Transport and Communications Ministry.

Last March Belavia’s general director Anatoliy Gusarov forecasted that the annual growth would be within 13-15%.

The main growth driver is the increasing transit traffic between Russia and Ukraine, which suspended direct air connection in 2015.

The growing significance of the transit flow through Belarus is undermined by the fact that the share of transfer traffic through Minsk last year increased from 36.6% to 40%.

The total traffic through the country's airports at the end of 2016 stood at 3.5 million passengers, up 22.2% yea-on-year. It's safe to assume that contribution of regional airports (Brest, Gomel, Mogilev, Vitebsk and Grodno) was insignificant.

In 2015 they handled just 92,000 passengers.

Belavia's development strategy is aligned with the growing transfer flows.

According to the ministry, the number of flights between Minsk and Kyiv, Lviv and Odesa all three in Ukraine, Almaty in Kazakhstan, Ashgabad ,Turkmenistanand Batumi,Georgia increased noticeably.

New destinations to Palanga in Lithuania and Zhukovsky in Russia are also gaining traction.

Cargo volumes carried by Belarusian airlines increased by 68.7% to 48,200 tons.

But considering that cargo traffic handled within the country stood at just 17,300 tons (up 3.4% year-on-year), the major part of the reported cargo was carried outside Belarus.

There are five airlines registered in Belarus that focus entirely or mostly on cargo- Grodno, Transaviaexport, Rada, Genex and Rubistar.

ITALY: Alitalia Launches Rome – Kyiv (Zhuliany) Route

Alitalia will launch the new flight from Rome to Kyiv (Zhuliany) starting on May 2, 2017.

Departure from Kyiv will be at 05:00, arrival in Rome — at 06:55 local time. The return flight will depart from the airport of Rome at 23:00 and arrive in Kyiv at 02:50. The new route Rome – Kyiv – Rome will be operated daily on modern А320 and А319 aircraft with two cabin classes: Business Class and Economy Class.

Morning arrival at Fiumicino Airport, Rome will allow passengers to access most of the cities in Italy, Europe and North America.

One-way ticket prices start at 110 EUR, including airport fees and transaction costs.

POLAND: Wizz Air Commences 2 New Poland Flights

Wizz Air today announced further expansion of its route network from Poland. From 1 November Wizz Air will start operating a new route from Wroclaw to the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv with two weekly flights, while from 14 January a new weekly WIZZ service will connect Gdansk with Grenoble in France. Tickets one the new routes starting at EUR 19.99 / PLN 79.

The newest WIZZ services connect Poland with such exciting destinations as Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, Reykjavik in Iceland, Porto in Portugal or Alghero on the island of Sardinia.

Gabor Vasarhelyi, Communications Manager at Wizz Air said: “Following the recent celebration of the 45 millionth Poland WIZZ passenger, we are thrilled to deliver again great news to our Polish customers. Our low fares now connect Wroclaw with the capital and largest city of Ukraine, Kyiv and Gdansk with the ‘capital of the Alps’, Grenoble, and we are sure these services will be as popular as the other 131 in our ever growing Poland route network. Seats on the newest WIZZ routes are already on sale from just PLN 79 / EUR 19.99 at wizzair.com. Our friendly Polish crew looks forward to welcoming you on board a WIZZ flight with a smile!”

ARMENIA: YanAir To Operate Regular Kyiv-Yerevan-Kyiv Flights

Ukrainian air company announced launching regular flights from Kyiv to Yerevan.

YanAir will operate regular Kyiv-Yerevan-Kyiv flights on Tuesday and Friday by Boeing 737, the company said in a statement.