THAILAND TRAVEL NEWS: Turkey’s national flag carrier, Turkish Airlines (Turkish), has committed almost half of its 2010 worldwide advertising budget to promoting Bangkok as its Australasian hub as it eyes growth in the region.

The Istanbul-based carrier has been involved in code-sharing talks with Thailand’s national airline, Thai Airways International (THAI) for almost a year and last year transferred about 30,000 passengers onto THAI flights bound for Australia.

Turkish Airlines Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia general manager, Adnan Aykac, said talks between the two airlines have been slow, but a formal agreement would result in about 10,000 more passengers a year being transferred from Turkish flights onto THAI flights headed for Australia.

Turkish currently operates a daily flight from Istanbul to Bangkok and plans to ramp this up to twice daily later this year if its code-sharing partnership with THAI can be finalised.

Mr Aykac said Turkish believes there is great potential for it in the Australia and New Zealand market, as well as in flights to Kuala Lumpur and Manila.

Though Turkish signed a direct-flight agreement with the Australian government last week, Mr. Aykac said he was still hopeful the talks with THAI will result in a strengthening of the two airlines partnership.

THAI has extensive routes into Australia and New Zealand and a code-share deal between the two airlines would allow Turkish to exploit these more, bring an increased number of tourists into Thailand, and increase THAIs passenger loads on these sectors as well, Mr. Aykac said.

Established in 1933, Turkish operates a mixed fleet of Boeing and Airbus SAS jet aircraft to more than 120 international destinations from its Istanbul headquarters. As of November 2009 the average age of its fleet was 5.9 years, almost half that of THAI whose average fleet age stands at about 11.6 years.

In 2009 Turkish Airlines increased its passenger numbers through Bangkok by 5 percent resulting in a 6 percent increase in passenger loads over that of 2008 to an average load of 80 percent. Of its $US70 million advertising budget for 2010, the airline has allocate $US30 million to promoting its Bangkok Australasian hub.

By John Le Fevre

Thailand Travel News for March 2, 2010