Despite the recent slowdown in the economy, Turkish Cargo is confident about the China market as well as its own expanding and increasingly important place in the international air cargo market.

So confident is the airline that despite the waning of what used to be the traditional end-of-year rally, it is upbeat about the final weeks of the year.

“Given current statistics, we are quite optimistic about the last quarter of 2015,” Serdar Demir, vice president, cargo operations, told Asia Cargo News. “As of August 2015, we carried 473,000 tonnes, with a 10.6% increase compared to the same period in 2014.”

This fits into a pattern of high growth levels. Last year Turkish moved 666,000 tonnes of cargo, up sharply from 2013’s total of 565,000 tonnes, itself an increase on 2012 when 465,000 tonnes were moved. All of this is a long way – and more than a tripling – since 2008 when Turkish carried what must now look like a meagre 198,000 tonnes.

Among the goods moved are general cargo, dangerous goods, pharmaceuticals, valuables, vulnerables and perishables. What is interesting, though, is the scale of its reach, as Turkish has a roster of 280 destinations in 110 countries which it serves with 10 freighters, 71 widebodies, and 215 narrowbodies.

Asia is a key part in the company’s success, Demir added, declaring that the airline is “very happy” with its performance ex-Asia.

Volumes from Asia increased more than 10% this year thanks to the performance of countries such as China and India, he said, although the figure is helped by the emergence of another exporter of note.

“Vietnam has been the rising star among our stations where we will surely focus further in the future. Currently, we believe our capacity is enough in markets like China, Japan and Korea. China is still our biggest market and so far we [have not felt] any slowdown thanks to our wide network.”

Linked to this is a caution about capacity, which seems to be at variance with the carrier’s pace of expansion, which is best described as being almost breakneck. The airline expects to see double-digit growth for the next eight years.

One motor is the growth of the Turkish economy, while the other is the country’s location, which is not so much a fulcrum between Europe and Asia, but between those two and Africa. Just three flight hours from Istanbul are 50 countries and, not surprisingly, the carrier plans to take a further 200 planes as it expands not just east-west but starts to mark out its share of the southern hemisphere.

Whatever the airline is doing, it is doing this cautiously. “We are very careful when it comes to capacity increase; we do select the markets in a very attentive way,” said Demir.

What’s at hand is a huge opportunity to tap cargo markets where choosing the markets and managing them is a difficult task. Turkish has squared its way round by having dedicated teams of professionals in every stage, including research and development, planning, operations, control, etc.

“Not only do we take the advantage of niche markets, but with our expanded network, we continue to support the developments of the less-rich markets, which is a win-win situation both for the regions and Turkish Cargo. Of course, it is not easy to deal with the less-rich markets, [but] this is the nature of the business and we have to learn to overcome difficulties,” Demir said.

One of the other ways Turkish deals with this is regional management teams, including regional directors, who are responsible for their countries. At Turkish Cargo, the world is divided into more than east and west but into six regional management areas. The Americas are based in New York, Africa in Nairobi, the Middle East in Dubai, Asia-Pacific in Hong Kong, Eastern Europe and Russia in Vienna and middle and southern Europe in Frankfurt.

“They report to us periodically and, based on this, we manage the regions,” said Demir.

By Michael Mackey

Southeast Asia Correspondent | Bangkok