Turkish Airlines Mulls IPOs And Joint Ventures For Cargo, Regional Units

Turkish Airlines is considering joint ventures and initial public offerings for its cargo business and regional carrier as it weighs up options to grow both internally and through deals, the chairman of Turkey's national airline said.

The airline also plans to participate in international bond markets, including issuing Eurobonds, to finance future investments and growth, Ahmet Bolat told Reuters.

The company was looking at strategies for its subsidiaries Turkish Cargo and regional carrier Anadolujet which flies to Northern Cyprus, Europe, Western Asia and the Middle East.

"Among those, we are evaluating different strategies such as joint ventures and IPOs", Bolat said, adding this could include a plan to turn AnadoluJet into a no-frills carrier.

"In addition to our main brand Turkish Airlines, we're also planning to renew AnadoluJet's fleet with the new-generation narrow body jets."

Turkish Airlines announced last month it had decided to buy six A350-900 type passenger aircraft from Airbus.

It has received 9 jets since the beginning of this year, bringing its total fleet to 377, making it ninth in fleet size among global airlines, Bolat said.

The company is looking to expand in the air cargo and logistical industries, he added.

Bolat said the carrier has been recovering from the pandemic hit and many financial indicators in May were above 2019 levels, but did not give further details for year-end expectations.

Turkish Airlines' passenger numbers were up by 8% and load factor was 2.5 points higher in May when compared with the same period in 2019. The company stopped releasing its year-end targets at the start of the pandemic in 2020 but asked on the profit outlook, Bolat said the company's performance will be in line with last year.

The airline made profit of $959 million and $10.7 billion in revenue in 2021.

(Writing by Ceyda Caglayan and Azra Ceylan; Editing by Ece Toksabay and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)