Pegasus Airlines

Pegasus Airlines was established in 1990 as a charter airline operating leisure flights from Turkey to European beach destinations, founded as a joint venture between Aer Lingus, the Türkiye İş Bankası pension fund, and ACCA Group. The charter operations provided the airline with a solid foundation in Turkish leisure aviation through the 1990s. ACCA Group acquired full ownership of Pegasus in 2005 and made the transformative decision to reposition it as a scheduled low-cost carrier — a move that proved prescient as the Turkish aviation market was deregulating and domestic air travel was growing rapidly. Pegasus launched scheduled service in 2005 with an initial domestic Turkish network and quickly expanded across European and Middle Eastern destinations.

The airline's choice of Sabiha Gökçen Airport as its Istanbul home was strategically significant — the airport had previously been underutilized despite serving Istanbul's populous Asian side, and Pegasus's growth effectively transformed it into one of Turkey's busiest airports. Pegasus listed on the Istanbul Stock Exchange (Borsa Istanbul) in 2013 and has used public capital markets to fund aggressive fleet renewal with Airbus A320neo family aircraft. The airline's fleet modernization has significantly reduced unit fuel costs and improved its competitive position against Turkish Airlines on domestic routes.