Turkish low-cost carrier AJet has announced that it has received its Air Operators Certificate (AOC) and is on track to begin flying operations in March 2024 in time for the start of the busy summer 2024 peak travel season.
The airline is wholly owned by national carrier Turkish Airlines and was previously known as AnadoluJet until a major rebranding exercise in November 2023 which saw the airline relaunched under the new name of AJet.
According to Turkey’s public disclosure platform (KAP) and later confirmed by the country’s civil aviation authority, AJet was awarded its own AOC on January 2, 2024. This marks the start of Ajet becoming an airline in its own right rather than simply an offshoot of the parent company.
“All application processes of our subsidiary AJet for obtaining an Air Operator Certificate within the framework of the Regulation on Commercial Air Transport Enterprises was completed and AJet was granted an Air Operator Certificate by the General Directorate of Civil Aviation on 2.01.2024,” said a statement issued by Turkish Airlines.
At the time of the rebranding exercise, Turkish Airlines’ Chairperson Ahmet Bolat said the airline was being relaunched as part of the parent company’s goals for the next decade.
“We fully believe that AJet, with its new name, will become an important part of the low-cost aviation industry on a global scale,” said Bolat at the time.
AJet will have dual bases located at Sabiha Gökçen Airport (SAW) in Istanbul and Esenboğa Airport (ESB) in the country’s capital, Ankara. With its AOC secured, AJet is all set to fly a busy summer schedule transporting people to and from Turkey. It will fly to 93 destinations in 33 countries with its fleet of 103 aircraft in 2024.
The airline’s current fleet comprises 13 Airbus A320s, 21 A321s, and 55 Boeing 737s (-800 and MAX 8s) with more to arrive before the summer travel peak.
Turkish Airlines previously attempted to launch an AnadoluJet spin-off airline in 2021 but this plan was shelved due to poor market conditions following the onset of the pandemic.
However, with COVID-19 now behind it, Turkish Airlines decided in early 2023 to get the process underway once more, given the growth that AnadoluJet saw in 2022 and with high forward bookings for 2023.
According to Turkish Airlines, the carrier hit an average load factor percentage of 90% in 2023, nearly ten percentage points higher than Turkish Airlines itself.
Over the past several months, AnadoluJet has been expanding its scheduled services further, adding routes between Istanbul and Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla Airport (BEG), Ankara Esenboğa Airport (ESB), and London Stansted Airport (STN), plus Istanbul to Rome-Fiumicino Airport (FCO).
