(LONDON – 13 March 2017) Pegasus Airlines has announced its financial and traffic results for 2016. According to the data obtained from the General Directorate of State Airports Administration, while a decrease of 4% has been observed in the number of passengers using the airports in Turkey, Pegasus Airlines has grown its number of guests by 8.1%, achieving 24.14 million passengers in 2016. Despite the many developments that have negatively affected the aviation industry, Pegasus Airlines has managed to increase its total turnover for 2016 by 6%, corresponding to 3.7 billion Turkish Liras.

Pegasus Airlines achieved 8.7% year-on-year growth in its seat capacity in 2016 to reach 30.73 million as well as maintaining a load factor of 78.6% despite the increase in capacity and shrinkage in demand. Pegasus Airlines increased its fleet size by 22.4% to 82 aircraft in 2016, achieving a growth rate above the market average both in domestic and international flights.

Commenting on the announcement of the results for 2016, Pegasus Airlines CEO Mehmet T. Nane said: “Despite the challenging conditions that negatively affected tourism and air traffic, we managed to end 2016 with operational growth. While the Turkish domestic aviation market recorded growth of 5.8% in terms of number of guests in the previous year, Pegasus achieved a growth rate of 10.7%. Unfortunately, the international flights market of our country suffered a shrinkage of 15.5%; even so, we have managed to continue to grow at a rate of 3.9%. We have continued with our investment in Turkey despite this challenging year and have raised the number of aicraft in our fleet from 67 to 82”.