SunExpress, the Turkish airline, is to introduce a twice-weekly (Tuesday and Saturday) service between Stansted and Ercan, capital of North Cyprus. The route will be operated by a Boeing 737-800 and will transit Izmir on its way to the breakaway republic.
The new flight is in addition to the existing twice-weekly service launched by SunExpress in February between Stansted and Antalya on the Turkish Riviera.Said to be Turkey”s leading low cost scheduled airline, SunExpress was founded as a joint venture by Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines.
”It is always a challenge to launch a new airline and new routes into a market, but we have been delighted by the response in the UK from both the travel trade and our passengers to SunExpress and the Antalya service,” said SunExpress commercial director, Michael Buck.
”More than 80% of our customers on the route have been UK residents and with summer just around the corner, we feel it is the right time to expand our activities in the UK and launch these two additional routes from London Stansted to Izmir and Ercan.”
Flights depart from Stansted at 18:20 and fly non-stop to Izmir to arrive just after midnight local time (00:05). Passengers for Ercan will remain in transit and ” using the same aircraft ” fly onwards to Northern Cyprus at 00:45 to land at Ercan at 02:10. Services from Ercan to the UK will depart on Tuesdays and Saturdays at 13:20 and from Izmir at 15:30. The services are scheduled to land at Stansted at 17:25.
Although considered a ”low cost scheduled carrier,” the generous product offered by Sun Express includes: free beverages and non-alcoholic drinks; complimentary snack meal plus special dietary options; seat selection at check-in; newspapers; in-flight movie and audio entertainment; 20 kgs free baggage allowance; and golf and dive equipment carried free of charge up to 30 kgs.
SunExpress, which made its first flight in 1989, boasts a young fleet and currently operates nine Boeing 737-800s and four 757-200s. It carried more than 2m passengers in 2006. Besides the UK, SunExpress offers non-stop scheduled services between Turkey and almost 30 destinations in Austria, Germany, Holland and Switzerland, as well as a domestic Turkish network serving nine destinations.