Turkish Cargo revenues and volumes jump in 2021

Turkish Airlines saw its cargo revenues rapidly increase last year on the back of volume improvements and higher prices.

The carrier saw its cargo revenues for last year increase by 48% year on year to $4bn on the back of a 26% increase in cargo volumes to 1.9m tons.

Higher industry rates would also have contributed to the revenue improvement.

The carrier said the increase in volumes positioned it as the world’s fifth largest cargo carrier (excluding integrators) in terms of tons carried, according to IATA statistics.

The carrier’s performance in cargo now exceeds pre-pandemic 2019 levels in both revenues and traffic, which stood at $1.7bn and and 1.5m tons two years ago.

Turkish Airlines said that it now had a marketshare of 5.2% for both cargo revenue and cargo traffic (FTK).

Meanwhile, cargo revenues now account for 37.6% of total company revenues compared with 12.8% in 2019.

Cargo capacity for the year increased by 22% compared to 2019 levels as it has continued to expand its freighter fleet.

By the end of the year, the airline was operating 20 freighters – 10 A330-200Fs, eight B777Fs and two unspecified wet-lease aircraft.

Turkish also continues to operate PAX-freighter aircraft.

“Cargo operations are continuing at full capacity with freighters and about 15 wide body passenger aircraft are being utilized for cargo operations,” the company said.

“As a result, 47% increase was recorded in 2021 fiscal year cargo revenues, the contribution of cargo operations to total revenue and profit increased significantly compared to 2020 fiscal year.

“Recovery in passenger operations leads to rising supply of belly cargo capacity which in turn positively impacts total cargo capacity.”