While many airlines around the world have been practically forced to implement additional cost-saving measures due to low passenger numbers, Turkish Airlines on the other hand has announced plans to increase employees’ wages despite the current pandemic.
During the pandemic, the Istanbul-based airline opted to avoid laying off staff and credits the sacrifices made by its staff, with some employees taking pay cuts of around 50 per cent. Now that vaccines are being rolled out and travel restrictions are being eased, Turkish Airlines has decided to increase pay for some of its airline employees from this month
With the airline in a relatively stable financial position in terms of generating revenue, Turkish Airlines stated that staff working on the international routes will be in line to receive a 10% increase (on top of inflation) in pay.
In a statement made to the public disclosure platform, KAP, the airline said “The Board of Directors made an evaluation by taking into account the self-sacrifice of our employees during the epidemic, the steps to ease the epidemic restrictions in all countries, the cautious optimism revealed by the spread of vaccine applications developed against Covid-19.”
This pay increase comes after following the news that the flag carrier of Turkey performed relatively well last year. The Turkish carrier ended the 2020 financial year recording USD$6.7 billion in revenue, but manage to record a net loss of only USD$836 million. Turkish Airlines also flew around 28 million passengers in 2020 in addition to achieving a remarkably high average load factor of 71 per cent.
Turkish Airlines were also able to increase its overall revenue for the year by operating more cargo flights. The carrier reconfigured around 50 passenger aircraft, which were deployed to meet high cargo demand throughout the pandemic period. In terms of the airline’s cargo division, Turkish Cargo has delivered close to 50,000 tons of essential medical supplies and 45 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to destinations throughout the world.
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