ATLASJET

'Atlasjet' is an airline based in Istanbul, Turkey. It operates domestic scheduled passenger services and regular charter flights to Europe, Kazakhstan and the United Arab Emirates. It serves Germany on behalf of Öger Tours. Its main base is Atatürk International Airport, Istanbul, with hubs at Adnan Menderes Airport, İzmir and Antalya Airport.^[1]

Contents

History

Services

New routes

Incidents and accidents

Fleet

Aircraft orders

External links

References

History

The airline was established on 14 March 2001 and started operations on 1 June 2001. Formerly known as Atlasjet International Airlines, it was set up as a subsidiary of Öger Holdings. In 2004 ETS Group acquired a 45% stake, increased in February 2006 to 90% when it acquired Öger's 45% holding. It is now owned by ETS Group (90%) and Tuncay Doganer (Vice-President and Chief Executive) (10%) and has 730 employees.

Services

Atlasjet operates the following services (at February 2007):

★ Domestic scheduled destinations: Adana, Ankara, Antalya, Bodrum, Dalaman, Edremit, Erzincan, Istanbul, İzmir, Kahramanmaraş, Kars, Malatya, Siirt, Sivas, Şanlıurfa, Tokat, Trabzon, Uşak, Van.

★ International scheduled destinations: London, Niš, Manchester

★ International charter destinations: Bucharest, Timişoara, Mykonos, Yerevan, Pristina, Bergen.

New routes

It has announced various new routes in April & May 2006:

★ Istanbul Atatürk-Ercan: up to 3x daily service

★ Istanbul Atatürk-Niš: 3x weekly (Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday) service from April 15 2007

★ Istanbul Atatürk-Konya: daily Canadair CRJ-700 service

★ Adana-Ercan: 6x weekly Airbus 319-100 service

★ Izmir-Ercan: 4x weekly Airbus 319-100 service

★ Istanbul Atatürk-Sanlıurfa: 2x weekly Canadair CRJ-900 service

★ Istanbul-Çanakkale 3x weekly Canadair CRJ-900 service

Incidents and accidents

★ On 7 February 2005 an Atlasjet Airbus A320 left the runway at Atatürk International Airport, Istanbul, Turkey, in snowy conditions. There were no fatalities among the 6 crew and 164 passengers.^[2]

★ On 18 August 2007 an Atlasjet airplane traveling from Northern Cyprus to Istanbul was hijacked. The hijackers landed it in Antalya, a Turkish province on the Mediterranean coast,Turkish channel NTV reported.The hijackers claimed to be al-Qaida members and that only the crew was left on board the jet. There were 136 passengers and six crew aboard when the plane left Ercan Airport in the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state in Northern Cyprus.The two hijackers surrendered after holding several people hostage for more than four hours.They are identified as Mehmet Resat Ozlu, a Turk, and Abdul Aziz Maliki who was believed to be a Palestinian carrying a Syrian passport. According to Turkish Transport Minister Osman Gunes the hijackers "apologised to the Turkish nation" for seizing the plane.

Fleet

The Atlasjet fleet includes the following aircraft (at April 2007):

★ 2 Airbus A319-100

★ 8 Airbus A320-200

★ 3 Boeing 757-200 ( up to 7600 km transatlantic range with winglets retrofit)

★ 3 Bombardier CRJ-900
Atlasjet average fleet age is 7.1 years (July 2006).^[3]

Aircraft orders

★ Atlasjet has indicated an interest in the 100 seats Bombardier CRJ-1000 which is now launched, the stretched version of the Bombardier CRJ-900 regional jet.

External links

★ Atlasjet

★ Atlasjet Fleet

References

1. Directory: World Airlines
2. Flight International, July 2005
3. Atlasjet Fleet Age