Helping Türkiye

Turkish Airlines has provided critical support to the survivors of the 7.8M Türkiye –Syria earthquake even as a powerful new earthquake rock the region. The Turkish flag carrier in coordination with Ministry of Interior Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) and Turkish Red Crescent has delivered search and rescue teams along with aid material to affected areas and evacuated those affected with evacuation flights without any charges during the crisis.

So far, Turkish Airlines has carried 238,112 search and rescue personnel with its 1,324 aid flights while evacuating 230,980 citizens from the earthquake area with 1,302 evacuation flights. Similarly, it carried 15,648 tons of relief material free of charge to areas affected by the earthquake including food, medicine, clothing, generators, hygiene kits, tents with 156 cargo flights (6,198 tons of the cargo were carried with flights conducted from 77 countries while the remaining 9,450 tons were from Türkiye).

“With the responsibility of being the national flag carrier, we are working with all officials including AFAD to mend the wounds caused by the earthquake as the 75 thousand strong Turkish Airlines family. Within that framework we will be building a Turkish Airlines neighborhood in the region with 1,000 homes for those affected by the earthquake,” said Turkish Airlines Chairman of the Board and the Executive Committee, Ahmet Bolat.

He added: “We will also employ 1,000 thousand personnel from 1,000 families affected by the earthquake in the Turkish Airlines and its subsidiaries. During these times where we come together as one in the face of natural disaster, Turkish Airlines also donated 2 billion TL while I personally donated my salary of March 2023 for immediate aid efforts.”

Turkish Airlines has 249 volunteers in the area, assisting search and rescue operations and delivering humanitarian aid. Members of Airport Rescue and Fire Fighting (ARFF) team of Turkish Airlines Flight Academy in Aydın also took part in the rescue operations in İskenderun.

Thousands of personnel from Turkish Technic also took part in the air and rescue, even offering psychosocial support for the citizens affected by the earthquake.Organising an aid campaign to transfer to AFAD, Turkish Technic collected approximately 2.3 million TL in the first 5 hours after the earthquake.

Offering free ticketing and reservation since 7 February, flag carrier also accepts citizens without reservations depending on the availability of the aircraft. Passengers can also change or refund their domestic flights or international flights to/from earthquake afflicted areas between 6 February – 31 March as long as they were first arranged before February 9.