SunExpress adds 10,000 UK summer seats amid increased demand

ISTANBUL

SunExpress, a joint venture of Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines, is responding to strong travel demand by adding 10,000 extra seats across five key routes from the U.K. to Türkiye for summer 2025.

Additional seats will be offered on the flights from London Gatwick, London Stansted, Bristol and Birmingham to Türkiye’s popular holiday destination Antalya and from Edinburgh to Dalaman between August and October, the carrier said in a statement.

Last year, a record 17.3 million tourists visited Antalya.

In the first four months of 2025, foreign tourist arrivals in the Mediterranean city surged more than 17 percent year-on-year to 1.8 million.

The number of Britons visiting Türkiye increased from 659,000 in January-April last year to around 678,000 during the same period of this year, according to the latest data from the Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry.

British tourists constituted the third-largest group of foreign holidaymakers in Türkiye in 2024.

Last year, the country hosted 4.43 million travelers from the U.K., up from 3.8 million in 2023.

SunExpress said in April that it aims to carry 16.8 million passengers this year by nearly doubling its seat capacity compared to the pre-COVID-19 period.   

Last year, SunExpress carried around 15 million passengers with a load factor of 86 percent, while its revenues increased by 23 percent from 2023 to 2.2 billion euros.   

SunExpress, with a strong presence on the Turkish Riviera and in Anatolia, operates a total of 237 routes to 92 destinations across 35 countries.