Full recovery of world air passenger travel may well take as long as 2023-24, as vaccination campaigns alone will not suffice to bring the market back to pre-pandemic levels, according to the chairman of national flag carrier Turkish Airlines.
Speaking exclusively to Anadolu Agency, Ilker Ayci said 2021 will be a year of transition for the aviation sector.
“Even if the whole world is being vaccinated at the same time, the market will not pick up soon, as financial recovery for both companies and customers will take time,” Ayci said.
At the end of the first quarter of 2020, when coronavirus’s full impact was starting to be felt, the global air freight market narrowed as passenger jets were grounded, also making those flights unavailable for carrying cargo.
But Turkish Cargo, a division of Turkish Airlines, continued its operations using both cargo and partial passenger aircraft while gaining ground at a time, when most air passenger operations ground to a halt, Ayci stressed.
Citing International Air Transport Association (IATA) data, Ayci underlined that in January-October 2020, while the global market volume nosedived 20.8%, Turkish Cargo still managed to rack up a 0.4% rise in air cargo.
Turkish Cargo’s market share climbed to 4.7% (in January-October), from 4.1% (in January), Ayci said, adding:
“With this development, we rose to sixth place in 2020, up from eighth in January-October 2019.”
Meanwhile, according to figures from World Air Cargo Data (WACD), Turkish Cargo’s income market share grew to 5.3% in January-November, up from 4.6% at the beginning of last year.
