SunExpress, a joint venture of Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines, has been named ‘Best Leisure Airline in Europe’ at the Skytrax World Airline Awards 2024, following their win in 2023 and receiving the “World’s Best Leisure Airline” award in 2022.

Launched in 1999, the Skytrax World Airline Awards are renowned as the "Oscars of Aviation” and recognise global airline excellence through the largest passenger satisfaction survey. From September 2023 to May 2024, travellers of over 100 nationalities participated in the survey to determine the winner.

Max Kownatzki, CEO of SunExpress, said: “SunExpress is delighted to be Europe’s best leisure airline once again. This award reflects our commitment to providing a high-quality and high-ease travel experience with genuine heart and passion for our passengers.

“I would like to thank all of our employees and loyal customers for helping us achieve this success again. We will continue to invest in our products and services both in the air and on the ground with the same passion and dedication in the years ahead.”

SunExpress is operating a total of 200 routes to 68 destinations across 35 countries in 2024. The carrier has expanded its UK services for summer 2024 and is offering a choice of 136 flights a week from nine UK airports: Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Leeds Bradford, London Gatwick, London Luton, Manchester, Newcastle, and London Stansted. This compares to 74 weekly flights from seven airports last year.

SunExpress will be adding Glasgow and Liverpool airports to its UK network in the summer of 2025.

In addition to summer ‘sun and beach’ travel, SunExpress aims to cater for numerous other types of travel for which Türkiye is popular including cultural, archaeological, and culinary tourism, and sports travel.

SunExpress is a value carrier with a strong presence on the Turkish Riviera and in Anatolia. The Turkish tourism ambassador is the leading carrier between Germany-Austria-Switzerland and the Turkish Riviera and Anatolia.