After COVID-19 impacted heavily on the revenues of Turkish Airlines MRO affiliate Turkish Technic in 2020, the company saw some green shoots of recovery last year as revenues rose and market share increased.
In full-year results for 2021 released Tuesday (Mar. 22), the maintenance provider posted revenues of around $1 billion, marking growth of approximately 15.7% compared to the previous year. During the past year, the MRO provider saw its market share increase by an estimated 1.6%.
Turkish Technic cited new base maintenance authorization from Turkey’s DGCA regulator for its hangars at Istanbul Airport, with the approval leading to performing base maintenance on a Boeing 787 aircraft for the first time. It also saw gains in the landing gear segment of around 40% for the year following the bolstering of capabilities in that repair segment.
Approximately 672 aircraft underwent base maintenance by Turkish Technic in 2021, with 216 landing gears being serviced, the company says.
“We are happy with these numbers which showed we grew and profited during 2021, especially after one of the hardest years for aviation,” says Mikail Akbulut, CEO of Turkish Technic, who states it is looking at ways to further aid its recovery for this year. “We will realize our growth plans by continuously increasing our capacity, capabilities, customer portfolio and personnel numbers.”
Akbulut adds the company hopes to rebound to pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2022, with mean revenues for last year still down by 28%.
Turkish Technic moved to grow capacity before the start of the pandemic and carried this through the early days of the crisis. In October 2020, it completed construction of new base maintenance hangars at its MRO complex located at Istanbul Airport, where the company moved to the previous year.
The new 645,000 ft.2 MRO complex in the country’s capital has capacity for three widebody and six narrowbody aircraft simultaneously.