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Turkish Airlines join Lufthansa to help fly 30,000 people home

Turkish Airlines

The Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa joint venture SunExpress has carried more than 30,000 people home in efforts to assist with repatriation due to flights being banned to minimalise the spread of coronavirus throughout the world.

Ahmed Caliskan the Deputy SEO of SunExpress said: “In line with our commitment to our passengers, we carried out 180 special flights departing from the Aegean province of Izmir and the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya, and approximately 30,000 citizens of the banned countries reached their homes between March 13 and March 22.”


Flight suspensions in Turkey

In an attempt to protect the general public health in Turkey from the coronavirus pandemic, Turkish authorities forced the Antalya-based company to suspend all flights from Turkey to France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, Ireland and the UK. These suspensions are currently to stay in force until at least the beginning of May.

Caliskan said: “As the backbone of Turkish tourism transportation and as in airline building an air bridge between Turkey and Europe, we will continue to increase our contribution to Turkish tourism.”


Measures against COVID-19 in Turkey

SunExpress is taking all measures to protect staff and passengers against the pandemic by ensuring disinfection procedures which have been fully approved by international authorities are regularly implemented by all the aircraft in the fleet. Caliskan added: “All our aircraft have the High-Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filtering system which is also used in the operating rooms of hospitals.”

He went on to say that as a company, SunExpress are fully committed to ensure all safety precautions and the well-being of their crew and passengers is paramount in these unknown times affecting the global world.


How far has coronavirus spread?

In accordance with data, currently the coronavirus has infected more than 1,200,000 people worldwide with over 68,000 people losing their lives and 260,000 are reported to have fully recovered from the virus.

*These figures are changing daily but are correct at the time of writing*

Coronavirus reportedly originated from Wuhan city in China in December and has been spreading across the world restricting any type of travel ever since.

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