Our Asian - Far East Regional Office was opened in Hong Kong, the most important air cargo centre of Asia-Far East, in 2011, and had served our customers from our office located in Wan Chai - Fenwick Street - Jubilee Center for six years. Our Regional Directorate has moved to its new office on 88 Hing Fat Street in Causeway Bay as of March 2017 and will continue its activities at its new address.
Over 80 of our business partners have joined the opening of our new office, while the opening ribbon was cut by the Consul General of Hong Kong Mr. Korhan Kemik, CCO Mr Turhan Özen, vice-president Mr Halit Anlatan and cargo regional director Mr Hüseyin Ceyhan.
Mr Özen, gaves a brief speech at the ceremony. He said; "As a new team member in Cargo , I found here in Hong Kong a strong team and strong supporters, 2017 will be a good year for cargo business as we have already had its first signals. We believe our current cooperation with our business partners will get stronger in 2017 with our increasing quality and capacity.", and thanked the attendees for their support to Turkish Airlines.
After one-on-one meetings held in order to strengthen our partners' relationship with Turkish Cargo, the event came to an end.
Within the six-year period since the establishment of the regional office, our company has experienced a rapid growth in the air cargo sector in the region. In 2011, we flew to only four destinations in Asia and Far East region as cargo flights. By 2017, we have been flying to 20 destinations and have been one of the fastest growing airlines in the region. During the last six years, the amount of cargo we carried at the exit of the region has increased 3 times and the growth trend continues increasing.
We launched our first cargo flights to Hyderabad, Chennai, Phnom Penh, Ho Chi Minh City, Colombo stations in 2016, while we increased our cargo counts in Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Shanghai. We will continue to grow in 2017 with wide-body passenger plane type upgrades in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Islamabad, Karaci and Lahor, while expanding cargo capacity and increasing frequency in Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Shanghai. In addition to the growth in our existing stations, Phuket is also on our list of new stations to be opened in the summer tariff.
