{"id":30527,"date":"2004-08-10T07:25:27","date_gmt":"2004-08-09T23:25:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/2004\/08\/10\/turkish-airlines-strives-for-greater-china-growth\/"},"modified":"2004-08-10T07:25:27","modified_gmt":"2004-08-09T23:25:27","slug":"turkish-airlines-strives-for-greater-china-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/2004\/08\/10\/30527\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkish Airlines Strives For Greater China Growth"},"content":{"rendered":"

ChinaHospitalityNews had the opportunity to sit down with Melih Topuz, General Manager for the P.R. China division of Turkish Airlines, to discuss the airline's recent expansion of its fleet, together with Mr. Topuz's own view on the industry's future in China.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Despite being a relative newcomer to China (he has only been in Beijing for two and a half months), Melih Topuz has an impressive track record over his more than 13 years with Turkish Airlines, the last four years having been spent in Pakistan. A relentlessly cheerful and enthusiastic operator, Topuz has since won a reputation for strong leadership and forward thinking.<\/p>\n

It was little surprise, therefore, that he now finds himself in China at the time when Istanbul, Turkish Airlines' primary destination, is seeking to reinforce its reputation as a hub for onward travel to Europe and the Middle East in the minds of potential Chinese travelers. Turkish Airlines' use of Istanbul as a hub is very fitting for the modern Chinese method of traveling, Topuz comments.&nbsp; While the Chinese travel industry is dramatically increasing, it is still most common for groups of tourists to visit several destinations, several different countries, on one trip abroad. By first flying to Istanbul, tourists can move on to virtually every country in Europe and the Middle East using the same airline – an incredible convenience, and one that is proving to very popular so far.<\/p>\n

Topuz is the first to admit that one part of the airline's great appeal is that the China-Istanbul leg is a night flight.&nbsp; It is very convenient, he says, passengers leave Beijing in the evening, they can sleep on the plane, and arrive refreshed in the morning. Night flights may well be a big advantage for Turkish Airlines in China, but they are also actually a necessity. As Istanbul is primarily used as a hub for onward travel within Europe and the Middle East at this time, our flights must arrive early enough in the morning for passengers to be able to catch the first wave of onward flights to Europe.&nbsp; Turkish Airlines aims, therefore, to bring the majority of our passengers to Istanbul at least two hours before their next flight in order to give them time to rest, walk around and stretch, and get into shape for the next flight. With China, the timing works out perfectly!<\/p>\n

The majority of Turkish Airlines' outbound traffic from China progresses to various destinations throughout Europe, while the airline's inbound traffic is currently coming from North Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. We don't see this changing in the short term, says Topuz, although we do, of course, expect the number to continue rising. There may well, however, be minor alterations – as a lot of our secondary business is derived from transporting cargo, certain parts of the fleet and their routes will naturally be adjusted as one source for cargo operations diminishes and another takes its place.<\/p>\n

Turkish Airlines is currently focusing upon building individual partnerships with airlines within each country to provide transfer services to its passengers.&nbsp; In China, the airline has agreements with a variety of local airlines, including AirChina and Shanghai Airlines, to ensure that passengers' baggage can be checked all the way through to their final destination, and transfers kept to a minimum of hassle.<\/p>\n

In order to establish a relationship with us, the potential partner must be able to guarantee an absolute minimum 70% equivalent quality across the board, Topuz explains. And, of course, that is particularly vital when it comes to the onward movement of baggage, but so far we have found the level of service amongst all our partners to be excellent.&nbsp; Currently it is possible to fly Turkish Airlines from London to Istanbul to Beijing to Chengdu, with the absolute minimum of inconvenience. We're very happy so far.<\/p>\n

For the future, Topuz is equally ambitious, especially after the recent announcement that Turkish Airlines had purchased 51 new aircraft – 36 from Airbus and 15 from Boeing – in a major expansion of the fleet.&nbsp; Within China, the airline plans first to move up from flights on 5 days each week to daily flights. Once this upgrade is in effect, the next step will be to separate the Beijing and Shanghai routes entirely (currently passengers in Shanghai first fly to Beijing and are then joined by more passengers to make the flight to Istanbul).<\/p>\n

It would appear that, with a bit of luck, and a lot of Topuz's energy, Turkish Airlines could be on the brink of major development in the region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ChinaHospitalityNews had the opportunity to sit down with Melih Topuz, General Manager for the P.R. China division of Turkish Airlines, to discuss the airline's recent expansion of its fleet, together with Mr. Topuz's own view on the industry's future in China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12723],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30527\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}