Travel Disruptors: Bringing the low-cost airline model to Türkiye - PEGASUS

 Pegasus Airlines has achieved considerable growth as a low-cost carrier. CEO Güliz Öztürk discusses its key strategic choices.

Güliz Öztürk joined Türkiye’s Pegasus Airlines in 2005, when it was a charter operation with 14 aircraft. She helped oversee the company’s transformation into a scheduled airline—with a fleet that now numbers more than 120 aircraft (not including a recent order for at least 100—and up to 200—more) and a route map that includes 53 countries. Öztürk became chief commercial officer of Pegasus in 2010 and was named its CEO in 2022.

In this installment of Travel Disruptors, Öztürk spoke with McKinsey’s Can Kendi about the distinctive business model choices Pegasus has made, the difficulty of applying a low-cost approach to long-haul travel, and Pegasus’s efforts to become a tech innovator in the airline sector. The following is an edited transcript of their recent conversation in Istanbul.

For more about the business of low-cost airlines, see further coverage in McKinsey’s State of Aviation 2025 report.

McKinsey: What has differentiated Pegasus since you joined the company?

Güliz Öztürk: The first and most important differentiator was the choice to bring the low-cost airline model to Türkiye. Türkiye has more than 80 million people—with a substantial middle-class population—and traveling by road from west to east takes about 22 hours by bus. So we knew it made sense on a certain level, and we now have 37 domestic destinations.

We did need to help people understand the low-cost model, though. This model is well known in parts of Europe and in the US, where it’s been accepted for decades. But for Turkish customers, we needed to invest a lot in explaining, for example, why they needed to pay extra to buy water and food on board the aircraft. People would send letters to us saying water should be free. We continuously explained that this would, in the end, be in favor of our customers, because it allows us to offer low fares while letting customers design their own experiences based on their personal choices.


Pegasus Airlines CEO Güliz Öztürk on strategy | McKinsey

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