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Turkish Airlines (Türk Hava Yolları) (THY) is the national airline of Turkey based in Istanbul. It operates a network of scheduled services to Europe, the Middle East, the Far East, North Africa, South Africa and the United States. The airline's main base is Atatürk International Airport (IST), Istanbul.
The airline was established on May 20, 1933, as the State Airlines Administration - Hava Yolları Devlet Işletmesi Idaresi. It began operations with an Istanbul, Eskisehir, Ankara service in August 1933. The name was changed to Devlet Hava Yolları Umum Müdürlüğü (DHY) in June 1938. The first international flight was launched in 1947 to Athens but it was another 40 years before the introduction of long-haul flights to the Far East and across the Atlantic.
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In a major reorganisation the state company DHY was replaced with a mixed corporation, Türk Hava Yolları AO (THY) on 20 February 1956. The airline's shares were passed to the prime ministry public participation administration in 1990 and about 24.8% of the shares were sold to the public. The airline is owned by TC Privatisation Administration (75.2%) and private shareholders (24.8%). The airline has around 12,000 employees. It also has a 50% holding in affiliated airline SunExpress, the other half of which owned by Thomas Cook of Germany.
Fleet
The fleet is under a major expansion with the purchase of 59 new planes (Boeing and Airbus) which will be delivered gradually until 2008. Total fleet as for August 2006 is 98 airplanes. The average age of Turkish Airlines fleet is 9.2 years old in April 2006. |
