He described how one special flight operated by the Turkish airline, aimed at golfers, surprised staff. “We sold out of beer and wine 25 minutes after departure; we haven’t done that in any other market.”

Kownatzki, a former Lufthansa executive who boasts a PhD and a commercial pilot’s licence, is getting more savvy about the UK now the Antalya-based carrier is set on making its mark here.

SunExpress is relatively unfamiliar to the UK trade or consumers despite being established in 1989 as a 50:50 joint venture between Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines. It has only dabbled in the UK market until now, but four years into his post, Kownatzki is determined to make a bigger impact here.

Work started in 2022 with the launch of flights from Birmingham, Edinburgh, Gatwick, Luton and Manchester. Bristol and Newcastle were added for summer 2023, and Leeds Bradford and Stansted for summer 2024. And it seems to be working; SunExpress carried 700,000 passengers from the UK in summer 2023, and plans for 1.3 million this summer.

Of the 136 weekly UK flights this summer, 80 are to Antalya, 39 to Dalaman and 15 to Izmir. There are also weekly flights to the eastern cities of Adana and Gaziantep, aimed mainly at the VFR market. Meanwhile, the airline is scoping “one or two” more UK departure points “every year”.

“In summer 2022, we had five UK airports – now there are nine," says Kownatzki. "Before that, we had some select routes, but nothing major. We are now number three behind Jet2.com and easyJet. We needed to venture further in terms of our network – that made us look at the UK.”

He stresses the collapse of the Russian market was not a factor. SunExpress operated there in 2017/18 for two seasons but withdrew because it was required to only carry Russian tour operator clients. There are no plans to return.

‘We’re value, not low-cost’

Meanwhile, Kownatzki believes SunExpress has advantages over its UK rivals in that it has “European revenue, Turkish costs”, plus no night flying restrictions and high aircraft utilisation – 16.5 hours a day.

However, he stresses: “We are not a low-cost carrier, we are a value carrier,” highlighting the airline’s pre-bookable meals as an example of its service.

As well as its Antalya HQ, SunExpress has another base at Izmir, as has rival Corendon Airlines – itself a relative newcomer to the UK, but with only 20 aircraft compared with SunExpress’s 77.

The latter has a head start too, boasting a 50% market share to the Turkish Riviera and a 38% share of all traffic to Turkey. 

Both Antalya and Izmir are huge tourist magnets, although only 45% of SunExpress passengers are tourists. The same number are VFR passengers and the rest domestic. Nevertheless, UK visitors are an important market segment, potentially even more so in future given the number of aircraft SunExpress has on order.

Its current fleet of Boeing 737s will double to 150 by 2033 – assuming Boeing’s production difficulties are overcome – and to 166 in 2035, hence the need for new destinations.

Expanding the season

Apart from these new routes, SunExpress has also extended into Turkey’s shoulder and winter season and  looked at markets like hiking, cultural tours and golf. “Expanding the season is about the geography, the product and timing; we added 2,000 more flights from September to December,” Kownatzki reveals.

His attempts to extend the season have been successful, but there is only so much that can be done given Turkey’s sometimes harsh winter climate – and Kownatzki has had to be inventive in terms of how to keep staff and aircraft busy. A deal with MSC Cruises has seen 70 members of cabin crew work for the cruise line during winter, while a handful of aircraft fly for South African Airways on domestic routes.

“We’re looking at opportunities with airlines we don’t compete with,” he explains. “Our goal is to not mothball any aircraft during winter.”