Bringing together regions, cultures, and economies together with its flights operated to over 300 destinations in five continents, Turkish Airlines continues to open its wings for the future of our world. During 2021, global brand prevented tens of thousands of trees from being cut and hundreds of thousands of cubic meter water from being contaminated with its sustainability operations with four focal points: humanity, world, improvement, and management function.
Campaigning against the environmental problems facing our world at every area it is operating ranging from air cargo to catering onboard, from aircraft MRO to ground services at the airports, flag carrier’s latest initiative was to use environmentally friendly fuel during its Istanbul – Paris flight on 2 February 2022. Global brand plans to increase the frequencies and destinations that use this fuel which is now being used on one flight per week for Paris, Oslo, Gothenburg, Copenhagen, London and Stockholm flights.
On the environmentalist operations, Turkish Airlines Chairman of the Board and the Executive Committee, Prof. Dr. Ahmet Bolat stated: “As Turkish Airlines, we are the airline that flies to more countries than any other with 128 countries in our flight network and every destination we fly to has its own unique worthiness waiting to be discovered. Protecting the future of these regions that possess unique beauty with their natural, historical, financial, or cultural assets is a significant matter for Turkish Airlines family. While carrying many to these wonders every day, we also wish to carry these rare works of our world to the future intact. With this perspective, we are optimizing all of our operations with sustainable endeavors and protect our world for the future generations. Turkish Airlines will continue to fly in the blue of the sky for the green of the ground.”
Prof. Dr. Ahmet Bolat, Turkish Airlines Chairman of the Board and the Executive Committee
Aircraft maintenance hangar recycles rainwater to useable water
As the region’s foremost MRO company with the technical abilities it possesses, Turkish Technic promises a more environmentally conscious future with its renewed facilities. Turkish Technic’s C/D hangar which is one of the service locations of the company and Turkiye’s biggest aircraft maintenance facility under one roof, stores rainwater and turns it into usable water.
This water which is stored and treated via rainwater collection system are then used all over the facility for day to day use and process water instead of drawing water from the city’s water supplies. During 2021, 54 percent of the facility’s water usage was met with rainwater.
Getting over 1 billion USD revenue with its 2021 operations, Turkish Technic makes a significant contribution to Turkiye’s exports while ensuring that by treating the water that was used during these operations, company prevented the waste of 1.471 million liters of water which equals to usage of 59 thousand people. On top of that, successful brand prevented 6710 trees from being cut by recycling 632 tons of non-hazardous waste and ensured 39,119 m3 of soil stayed clean by recovery of 700 tons of hazardous waste.
Turkish Cargo carries economy of Uganda to the future
As the fastest growing brand of global cargo sector, Turkish Cargo supports the projects that ease international trade in accordance with its sustainability strategy. Successful brand supports Uganda Project, one of the country projects of The Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation, which aims to improve and grow the export of Uganda. Turkish Cargo provides training support for Ugandan personnel, sharing its operational experience to contribute towards digitalization and improvement in capacity for air cargo sector in Uganda.
Electric vehicles of TGS travel approximately 38 thousand km every day
Turkish Ground Services (TGS) possesses 309 electric vehicles in 9 airports located in Istanbul and Anatolia and that number is rising every day. Ranging from pushback vehicles that move aircraft to baggage tractors, electric vehicles contribute to environmentally conscious operations of TGS. When the daily active hours of vehicles are counted, they collectively travel approximately 38 thousand km every day, almost the circumference of Earth.
Company’s environmentalist actions are not limited to this either. Working with zero waste goal on all of its work processes, ground services operator prevented 2152 tons of hazardous and 294 tons of non-hazardous waste from being mixed with nature during 2021 just on the airports in Istanbul.
Aircraft saved enough fuel to equal 292 thousand trees being planted in a year
Biggest returns for the environmentalist operations of Turkish Airlines comes from fuel saving efforts. By productively adapting processes such as single engine taxi methods, route optimizations and flight center of gravity during planning to operations, flag carrier saved 37,820 tons of fuel and prevented 116,809 tons of carbon emissions from being released to atmosphere during 2021. This equals to 292 thousand trees being planted or 473 flights between Istanbul and New York with wide body aircraft.
Operating with one of the world’s youngest fleets, flag carrier airline aims to increase its fuel-saving by enhancing its fleet with new generation aircraft.
Sustainability themed aircraft of Turkish Airlines is in the skies
Flying to more countries than any other airline, Turkish Airlines used a special design adorned with leaves on its Airbus 321 type TC-JSU tail numbered aircraft which was used on its environmentalist fuel operation. Global carrier operated its first flight with the new themed aircraft to Stockholm with TK1795 flight. In line with the effort to lead towards widespread use of environmentally friendly fuel, the flight which used biofuel during its operation was also undertaken with zero waste principle.
Apart from providing information on the sustainability actions with the Green Class concept of this first flight, flag carrier also took new environmentally conscious actions for this flight. While kraft tissues, paper cups, wooden salt and pepper shakers were used on the flight, all passengers were served complimentary healthy green tea. Another special measure was the nature-friendly pillow covers and blankets which were produced with 100 percent recycled certificated threads in order to save on water. FSC certified wooden toys were gifted for our child guests.
On the environmentally friendly aircraft, Turkish Airlines Chairman of the Board and the Executive Committee, Prof. Dr. Ahmet Bolat stated: “As the national flag carrier of our country, our aircraft with its new design is now in the skies to underline the importance of sustainability for us. With the biofuel expression on our aircraft, we wish to emphasize the significance of using sustainable aviation fuel as it is one of the biggest hurdles of aviation industry’s struggle against carbon emissions. Thus, we are supporting the biofuel manufacturing efforts and aim to increase our flights which use biofuel during their operations.”
Global carrier will continue its efforts to lower its carbon emissions with new generation aircraft added to its already young fleet of 8,5 average age while planning to add new cities that are served with operations using biofuel on top of Stockholm, Oslo, Gothenburg, Copenhagen, Paris and London.
