Turkish Airlines
is one of the world’s largest airlines, flying to more international destinations than any other carrier. It also has highly ambitious growth targets, aiming to more than double its capacity, passengers carried, and revenue over the next decade. To do so, it plans to increase its fleet size to more than 800 aircraft by 2033.
Photo: AJet
To achieve this growth, Turkish Airlines will rely not only on its primary brand but also on the various subsidiary investments it has made in recent years. One of these is AJet, its low-cost carrier (LCC) subsidiary, which is one of the fastest-growing areas of the organization. If you don’t recognize the name, that’s because the brand has only existed for a few months, but it is already making a real impact across Europe and the Middle East, so let’s take a closer look.
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AnadoluJet: The AJet origin story
Turkish Airlines created AnadoluJet in 2008 as a subsidiary designed to serve the domestic market. The new airline focused on providing air connectivity to secondary cities, especially in the less-developed eastern part of the country. It was initially based at Ankara’s Esenboga Airport (ESB), launching with five Boeing 737-400s featuring a 166-seat, all-economy class configuration.
Photo: Photofex_AUT | Shutterstock
AnadoluJet quickly opened a second hub at Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen Airport (SAW), an airport that OAG recently recognized as one of the LCC Megahubs of Europe. By 2012, it had expanded its domestic network to 35 destinations and added 13 international destinations, and by 2016, it had grown further and was operating a network of 77 routes. The fleet also grew rapidly to enable this, with 40 Boeing 737-800s provided by the parent company and extensive leasing of other aircraft such as Airbus A320s.
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By 2019, Turkish Airlines’ management was concerned about the resources that the carrier and its subsidiary SunExpress were putting into AnadoluJet, and seriously considering separating it into an independent company with an LCC focus. They had also observed how numerous other legacy carriers were having success with separate LCC subsidiaries and felt that AnadoluJet could compete more effectively with local rivals like Pegasus Airlines and pan-Euiropean carriers like Ryanair and easyJet if it had its own strong LCC brand. But then along came the pandemic…
Photo: MBekir | Shutterstock
A brief aside: The LCC subsidiary model
Turkish Airlines’ thinking was nothing new. Legacy carriers have been trying (and failing) to create LCC subsidiaries for decades. Just think back to Delta Air Lines with Song, British Airways with Go, Air Canada with Tango and Zip, United Airlines with Ted, or KLM with Buzz—all bold attempts that failed.
However, business models have matured, and more recently, several legacy carriers have had considerable success with their LCC subsidiaries, which, in many cases, have become core revenue contributors and growth drivers in their business. These include the following examples:
Jetstar: Qantas’ two-brand success story
Jetstar flies to 22 domestic destinations in Australia and 18 international destinations in 12 countries with a fleet of over 80 aircraft. Its most recent financials saw it deliver a $400 million profit on over $4.2 billion in revenue.
Photo: Ryan Fletcher | Shutterstock
Vueling: The LCC jewel in the IAG crown
The parent company of British Airways, Iberia, and Aer Lingus acquired Vueling over a decade ago. With a fleet of 125 aircraft, it flies to over 100 destinations. It reported a profit of $335 million on revenue of $3.3 billion.
Photo: Airbus
Eurowings: The largest LCC in Germany
Eurowings is the LCC subsidiary of the Lufthansa Group. It flies to more than 150 destinations with a fleet of over 80 aircraft. Last year, it delivered a profit to the group of $250 million on revenues of $2.6 billion.
Photo: Markus Mainka | Shutterstock
Scoot: A short and long-haul LCC
Scoot, which merged with Tigerair a few years back, flies to 70 destinations across 18 countries and territories in Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and Europe. Although it struggled to recover from the pandemic, it delivered a $50 million profit on $2 billion in revenue last year.
Photo: Airbus
Transavia: The bright green LCC machine
Transavia is the Air France-KLM group’s LCC subsidiary, based at Amsterdam Schiphol. It uses a fleet of over 50 aircraft to serve nearly 100 destinations. Last year, it generated $2.6 billion in revenue and is on track to return to profitability this year.
Photo: AF-KLM
The new AJet low-cost carrier is formed
These success stories were very appealing to Turkish Airlines. As a result, once it had successfully navigated the pandemic recovery, it revisited the idea of restructuring its subsidiary as an independent LCC. In February 2023, Turkish Airlines confirmed its plans to spin off AnadoluJet from an incorporated brand name into an independently operating airline named AJet.
Photo: AJet
By July, Turkish Airlines’ Board Chairman, Dr. Ahmet Bolat, announced that the new company had been incorporated.
“After years of enjoyable travel under the AnadoluJet name, the new AJet company and brand is not just a new name; it is also the name of a transformation that carries the promise of serving passengers with modern aircraft and accessible prices. We fully believe that the newly independent AJet will become an important part of the cost-effective aviation industry on a global scale.”
In November, the new AJet branding and livery were unveiled on an Airbus A321neo, and by early January, AJet had received its own independent air operator’s certificate. This ensured that it stayed on track for the formal launch of the new airline in March, right in time for the surging demand over the summer season.
A look inside the AJet operations
The new AJet continued with the same dual-hub model as its predecessor, with extensive operations from Istanbul and Ankara. It is the dominant carrier at the latter, serving over 60 destinations from the nation’s capital. In Istanbul, AJet has about a third of the flights from Sabiha Gokcen Airport, which is dominated by Pegasus Airlines.
A glance at the route map below shows that AJet has a base of numerous direct and interconnecting routes within Turkey, especially to smaller airports with minimal direct connections to others. However, it has also expanded strongly into Western Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia, which has become an increased focus area.
Route Map: FlightConnections
In total, AJet now has 78 domestic and 101 international routes and has served over 20 million passengers in the past year. Its expansion of international routes has been particularly notable in the last few years. Before the pandemic, just 6% of its passengers were on international flights, but that had increased to over 40% last year. This trend is only set to continue as the LCC share of all European traffic to and from Turkey has risen from 26% to 42% over the past decade and continues to grow strongly.
Photo: AJet
AJet’s current fleet and future plans
To handle this level of growth, the AJet fleet has expanded considerably over recent years. It currently operates a mixed fleet of Airbus and Boeing aircraft as follows:
|
Aircraft Type |
Number in fleet |
Average Age (years) |
|
Airbus A320-200 |
1 |
14.5 |
|
Airbus A320neo |
11 |
2.8 |
|
Airbus A321-200 |
11 |
16.9 |
|
Airbus A321neo |
14 |
1.9 |
|
Boeing 737-800 |
45 |
19.1 |
|
Boeing 737 MAX 8 |
9 |
3.8 |
The fleet list does not read like that of a typical LCC, and AJet has several immediate fleet development plans:
- Reduction in leasing: A large proportion of these aircraft operate as wet leases, mostly from parent Turkish Airlines but also BBN Airlines Türkiye and SmartLynx Airlines. AJet intends to halve the number of leased aircraft next year as it takes greater direct control of its fleet management.
- Reconfiguration of aircraft: The current fleet has a confusing mix of configurations. For example, the A320neos are laid out as 186-seat all economy, but most of the A321neos are configured with eight business class seats and 203 in economy. Expect to see this adjusted to all-economy configurations over the coming months.
- Move to next-generation aircraft: Bolat has stated that AJet wants to have 90% of its fleet being next-generation aircraft within three years. As it makes this shift, it is reasonable to expect it to start standardizing on a single aircraft family, as is traditional for LCCs. While the airline expects to add some additional B737 MAX 8s to meet capacity demands in the short term, AJet will likely benefit from the huge order for 150 A321neos that Turkish Airlines placed with Airbus last year.
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Ambitious growth goals for the future
AJet is also examining its entire product offering, and one area that is receiving a lot of attention is ancillary revenues. This has been a recent area of revenue growth success for all of the leading LCCs. For example, Cebu Pacific increased its ancillary revenues to 28% of total revenue last year, allowing the airline to achieve record revenues and rebound to profitability, even as its passenger traffic had not quite recovered to pre-pandemic revenues.
Photo: AJet
AJet has plans to introduce paid-for WiFi onboard, and recently selected Hughes to implement its Integrated In-Flight Connectivity (IFC) solution across the entire fleet. The airline is also standardizing its checked baggage fees and plans to provide a range of food and beverage offerings available for purchase onboard. Most interestingly, AJet is also offering passengers who are members of its loyalty program free access to Turkish Airlines lounges at 14 domestic airports while making it available to non-members for an additional fee of approximately $35.
Photo: AJet
Like its parent company, AJet has some highly ambitious growth goals for the next few years. As part of the Turkish Airlines 10-year growth plan released last year, AJet is expected to have a fleet of 200 aircraft by 2033, with domestic traffic nearly doubling and international traffic increasing by 440% over this period.
Ultimately, AJet aspires to become one of the leading LCCs across Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, serving over 100 international destinations across 44 countries by 2033. Given its parent company’s track record of growth over the past decade, it would seem foolish to bet against AJet achieving these goals.
Photo: AJet