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Turkish Airlines
IATA TK	ICAO THY	Callsign TURKISH
Founded		1933
Hubs		Atatürk Int'l Airport
Focus cities		Esenboga Int'l Airport Sabiha Gokçen Int'l Airport
Frequent flyer program		Miles & Smiles
Alliance		Star Alliance (Observer Status)
Fleet size		105
Destinations		133
Headquarters		Istanbul, Turkey
Key people		Temel Kotil (CEO)
Website: http://www.turkishairlines.com

Turkish Airlines (Turkish Türk Hava Yolları) (THY) is the national airline of Turkey based in Istanbul. It operates a network of scheduled services to 103 international and 28 domestic cities, serving a total of 134 airports, in Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, the Far East, Africa, and the United States. The airline's main base is Atatürk International Airport (IST), Istanbul, with secondary hubs at Esenboga International Airport (ESB), Ankara, and Sabiha Gokcen International Airport (SAW), Istanbul. In 2006, it carried 17.5 million passengers with total revenues of US$3 billion. [1] The airline has around 12,000 employees.

Contents 1 History 2 Destinations 3 Fleet 3.1 Maintenance center 4 Incidents and accidents 5 Livery 6 Trivia 7 See also 8 Reference 9 External links

The airline was established on May 20, 1933, as the State Airlines Administration - Hava Yolları Devlet Işletmesi Idaresi. It began operations with an Istanbul, Eskişehir, Ankara service in August 1933. The name was changed to Devlet Hava Yolları Umum Müdürlüğü (DHY) in June 1938. The first international flight was launched in 1947 to Athens but it was another 40 years before the introduction of long-haul flights to the Far East and across the Atlantic.

In a major reorganisation the state company DHY was replaced with a mixed corporation, Türk Hava Yolları AO (THY) on 20 February 1956. The airline's shares were passed to the Prime Ministry Public Participation Administration in 1990, which took the company public first in December 1990 selling 5% of the shares. The government later sold about 23.0% of the shares to the public in December 2004 and a further 28.75% in May 2006. The airline is owned by TC Privatisation Administration (49%) and private shareholders (51%). It also has a 50% holding in affiliated airline SunExpress, the other half of which owned by Thomas Cook of Germany. It has set up in September 2006 an airline catering JV with Do&Co Restaurants & Catering of Austria. Turkish Airlines quit Qualiflyer group in 1999, due to incompatibilites with Swissair and Delta. The request of joining the Star Alliance has been accepted in December 2006; Turkish Airlines is expected to join the Alliance in late 2008

Further information: Turkish Airlines destinations

The Turkish Airlines fleet consists of the following aircraft as of January 2007:

Turkish Airlines Fleet

Aircraft	Total	Passengers	Notes
Airbus A310-300	7 [(1 Freighter)]	208 / 210
Airbus A319-100	2
Airbus A320-200	15 (17 orders)	150 / 156 / 167 / 168
Airbus A321-100/200	11 (8 orders)	155 / 186 / 195 / 202
Airbus A330-200	5	250
Airbus A340-300	7	271
Boeing 737-400	16	148 / 150 / 152
Boeing 737-800	41 (8 orders)	165

• The airline has ordered 59 new planes (Boeing and Airbus) which will be delivered gradually until 2008.

• Total fleet as for January 2007 is 104 airplanes.

The average age of Turkish Airlines fleet is under 5 years with the new airplanes.

Turkish Airlines has a maintenance centre at its hub Atatürk International Airport, (IST) in Istanbul. Turkish Airlines Maintenance Center (THY Technic) is responsible for the maintenance, repair and overhaul of THY's all aircraft, engines, APUs and components.

During its 72 year history, Turkish Airlines had three accidents on its international flights, and 18 on domestic flights. The most disastrous was Turkish Airlines Flight 981, which crashed in France on 3 March 1974 due to explosive decompression, killing all 346 people aboard. The main cause of this event was a design fault on the cargo doors of DC-10 aircraft. Before the Tenerife disaster, it was the worst aircraft disaster.

Turkish Airlines's livery is a Eurowhite scheme, composed of primarily white with red accents.

In the film "Snatch", the narrator played by Jason Statham is named "Turkish". He explains in his initial monologue that he is named in honor of a Turkish Airlines disaster.

• SunExpress, A daughter company of Turkish Airlines based in Antalya.
• Onur Air
• Pegasus Airlines
• Atlasjet
• Fly Air
• Izair
• Turkish Airlines Flight 1476 which was hijacked in 2006.

• Accident report on Turkish Airlines

• Turkish Airlines
• Turkish Airlines Maintenance Center
• Turkish Airlines Fleet Age
• Turkish Airlines Fleet Detail
• Turkish Airlines Passenger Opinions
• SunExpress
• Turkish Airlines history