Airline

1. Introduction

Turkish Airlines is one of the well-known brand names in Turkey consistently associated with high quality. Founded in 1933, it is also one of the oldest companies in Turkey, but still young at heart with a dynamic workforce and one of the youngest fleets of aircraft in Europe.

Let’s have short look to the history of Turkish Airlines Company.

Turkish Airlines was founded under Law No. 2186 in Ankara on May 20, 1933, under the name "State Airlines Administration" as a Department of the Ministry of Defense. In 1955, pursuant to Law No. 6623, the State Airlines was restructured as a corporation governed by the provisions of private law and continued its operations under the name of "Türk Hava Yollari Anonim Ortakligi".

Unfortunately, the airline was plagued by a several difficult issues. It developed a reputation for poor customer service and delays. It also endured hijackings and suffered seven accidents between 1974 and 1983, noted Air Transport World.

However, a new government came to power in 1983 which recognized THY's importance as Turkey's ambassador to the world, beginning the airline's make-over into a modern operation. It would maintain one of the youngest fleets in the world. Security was intensified, causing one shipper to compare it to Israel's El Al, at least in terms of delays.

TA built a new, state-of-the-art technical center at Yesilkoy Airport in 1984. It was capable of both light and heavy maintenance on a number of different aircraft type. Technical staff then made up one-quarter of the airline's 6,000 employees, according to Air Transport World. n 1984, the company's capital was raised to TRL 60 billion as it was classified as a state economic enterprise. Three years later, the capital was raised again, to TL150 billion.

By the mid-1980s, TA had a fleet of 30 aircraft. It was flying about three million passengers a year to 16 domestic destinations and three dozen international ones. The airline was Turkey's largest...