Increase Flight Flights to Eastern and Southeastern Anatolian Provinces

A joint statement was made by the Diyarbakır Commodity Exchange (DTB) and the Diyarbakır Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DTSO) due to the insufficient number of flights to Eastern and Southeastern Anatolian provinces. The statement stated that the flights to Eastern and Southeastern Anatolian provinces were insufficient and it was called for an increase.

Statement by DTB and DTSO; “It has announced that the flights of 24 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft in the THY fleet have been stopped until the second order as of 13 March 2019 by the Turkish Airlines Directorate for the purpose of providing flight safety and passenger safety. After taking this decision, restrictions were made on domestic and international flights, and the number of daily flights in many cities was reduced.

However, with a disproportionate arrangement when planning flights on domestic flights, the number of flights in the Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia Region has been reduced much more than other Anatolian provinces.

• In the researches conducted by us, the following results were found.
• In many provinces, 10-30% restriction is applied on THY and Anadolu jet flights, while this ratio is restricted around 50-60% in the region.
• The daily flights to Ankara from many provinces have been reduced to several days a week.
• It has become almost impossible to obtain flight tickets under 400,00 TL.
• The CIP lounges at modern airports built by the instructions of your presidency and the equipment inside started to rot as they were not put into service.
• It has become impossible to find a flight ticket a week ago in many provinces and it is tried to travel to the provinces in the region by road from the nearest airport.
• The funerals of our relatives who died in the western provinces can be buried by waiting for a few days as no plane tickets can be found by their relatives.
• Domestic touristic visits by plane have come to a halt.
• Unfortunately, our requests for appointment from the General Manager of THY on this matter were not found.

All official and scientific data show that our region is at a low level compared to other regions in terms of development. Despite this, we, as business people of our region, have never lost our determination to take our national and regional development to a higher level. Our efforts to operate the historical and cultural wealth of our region in favor of the tourism sector and to contribute to the economic development of our country and region continue. As a result of the peace and security environment provided in the region and our corporate efforts, important developments have started to occur in the tourism sector. As can be seen from TURKSTAT data, there has been a double increase in the number of domestic and foreign tourists visiting the provinces of the region compared to previous years.

While this increase is expected to continue with a much faster acceleration in the coming years, we see THY General Directorate to reduce the number of flights to the provinces of the region as an unacceptable practice. It is essential for the development of our country and our region to review the current flight programs and to increase the flight flights of the provinces. ” The statement said.