Turkish Airlines plans revival by 2018 after terror prompts loss

Turkish Airlines is targeting a return to its earlier pace of gains in passenger numbers by next year as the effects of terrorism and political turmoil wane after causing a loss in 2016. Turkish Airlines will post a “moderate” increase in passenger numbers this year and “from 2018 onwards, we will be seeing our historical growth rates,” Chairman Ilker Ayci said Monday. Once the rising star of the aviation industry, the Istanbul-based carrier posted a 47m-lira ($13m) net loss last year compared with profit of 3b liras in 2015, its first annual deficit since 2000. Passenger numbers rose 2.5% in 2016, slowing from an average yearly gain of about 16% from 2011 through 2015, according to an investor presentation. Tourist and business sites in Turkey have been terrorist targets in the past year and a half, including an assault by suicide bombers in late June at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport that killed 41 people. Economic sanctions by Russia after Turkish forces shot down one of its fighter jets reduced traffic from that market in the first half of 2016. The airline’s efforts to recover from those incidents were hampered by an unsuccessful insurgency in the military to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on July 15 that killed about 250 people. The carrier grounded 30 aircraft, about 9 percent of its fleet, and scrapped 22 destinations in November. Tourist arrivals in Turkey plunged more than 30% to the lowest in a decade. The airline’s full-year loss was held back as the company reduced costs per available seat kilometer in Q4 and scaled back flight offerings. Ayci said Turkish Airlines will start bringing the grounded planes back into service in April after bookings for that month and May jumped 4.2% from a year earlier. <br/>