Turkish Airline
By wikipedis

Turkish Airlines (Turkish T?rk Hava Yollar?) (THY) is the national of Turkey based in Istanbul. It operates a network of scheduled services to 103 international and 30 domestic cities, serving a total of 136 airports, in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the United States. The airline's main base is Atat?rk International Airport (IST), Istanbul, with secondary hubs at Esenboga International Airport (ESB), Ankara, and Sabiha Gokcen International Airport (SAW), Istanbul. In 2006, it carried 17 million passengers with total revenues of US$3 billion.  The has around 12,000 employees.

History

The was established on May 20, 1933, as the State Airlines Administration - Hava Yollar? Devlet I?letmesi Idaresi (DHY). It began operations with an Istanbul, Eski?ehir, Ankara service in August 1933. In September 1937, the received three De Havilland D.H. 86B biplane airliners. The following December, DHY receieved the fourth plane. These planes enlarged the domestic routes of DHY to the destination of Istanbul, Eskisehir, Izmir, Ankara, Adana, Kayseri and Diyarbakir. The name was changed to Devlet Hava Yollar? Umum M?d?rl??? (DHY) in June 1938. The first international flight was launched in 1947 to Athens but it was another 40 years before the introduction of long-haul flights to the Far East and across the Atlantic.

In a major reorganisation, the state company DHY was replaced with a mixed corporation, T?rk Hava Yollar? AO (THY) on 20 February 1956. The airline's shares were passed to the Prime Ministry Public Participation Administration in 1990, which took the company public first in December



1990 selling 5% of the shares. The government later sold about 23.0% of the shares to the public in December 2004 and a further 28.75% in May 2006. The is owned by TC Privatisation Administration (49%) and private shareholders (51%). It also has a 50% holding in affiliated SunExpress, the other half of which owned by Thomas Cook of Germany. It has set up in September 2006 an catering JV with Do&Co Restaurants & Catering of Austria. Turkish Airlines quit the Qualiflyer group in 1999, due to incompatibilites with Swissair and Delta. The request of joining the Star Alliance has been accepted in December 2006; Turkish Airlines is expected to join the Alliance in late 2008