Türkiye crucial market, valuable source for Boeing’s new-gen aircraft

All of Boeing’s new generation aircraft bear parts produced in Türkiye, Boeing Türkiye General Manager Ayşem Sargın said Wednesday.

Her remarks were made during the Turkish Sustainable Aviation Platform event organized by Turkish Airlines (THY), Boeing and Istanbul Technical University (ITÜ).

Notable attendees at the event, apart from Sargın, included Turkish Airlines Deputy General Manager Levent Konukcu, U.S. General Consul in Istanbul Julie Eadeh and ITÜ vice rector Lütfiye Durak Ata.

During her speech, Sargın highlighted Boeing’s longstanding presence in Türkiye for over 75 years.

She expressed delight in witnessing Turkish aviation’s remarkable achievements and rapid growth over this period, considering it a matter of great pride.

“We have worked hand in hand with the Turkish aviation industry in many fields from industry to service, technology to education during this growth period and achieved very important successes. We have had award-winning suppliers from Türkiye. We have joint projects that we have brought to the patent stage in research and development (R&D), we have developed technologies together and today, there is a piece of Türkiye in all of Boeing’s new generation aircraft,” Sargın said.

Highlighting the significance of Türkiye as both a crucial market and a valuable source country, Sargın underscored that they had established a strategic cooperation framework with Türkiye several years ago, leading to the announcement of the Boeing Türkiye national aviation plan.

Under this program, Sargın explained, they have identified key areas of mutual interest that will contribute to Boeing’s global prominence in the aviation industry, with Türkiye playing a vital role. These areas encompass industry, technology, service maintenance and a skilled workforce. Sargın further elaborated that Boeing has made substantial investments in Türkiye and fostered significant collaborations to bolster progress in these areas.

THY’s Konukcu, at the event, meanwhile, stated that climate change, which is one of the top priority global issues, has taken an important place in the agenda of the aviation industry.

“Air transport is one of the sectors that take action globally to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and sets the most comprehensive targets. As the global face of Türkiye, we closely follow the developments in the sector. As the flag carrier airline, we are taking important steps in a way that suits our country and our partnership,” Konukcu said.

Stating that they announced their strategies for 2033 in the past weeks, Konukcu said: “In this 10-year strategy, we have included the works that we will implement in the field of sustainability in the near future. Accordingly, we have announced our target to become a carbon-neutral airline in 2050 to all our stakeholders. Moving toward this goal, we make improvements under our fleet modernization and comprehensive fuel-saving policy and increasing our use of sustainable aviation fuel will be our most important pillars.”

Konukcu said that as an airline with one of the youngest fleets in the world, they will continue to add new generation aircraft with high fuel efficiency, low noise and low carbon emissions to their fleet.

Konukcu announced that they had prevented 181,379 tons of carbon emissions by saving 57,581 tons of fuel in 2022 alone, with more than 100 operational optimization projects they have implemented since 2008.

Stating that they have continued to use biofuels regularly and in increasing destinations since February 2022, Konukcu said, “In addition to the studies we have carried out on emission reduction, we also closely follow the carbon balancing issues that stand out in the management of unavoidable emissions.”