Pegasus Airlines

Pegasus Airlines is a Turkish low-cost carrier with its head office in the Kurtköy area of Pendik, Istanbul. Its main operating base is Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen Airport, and it keeps further bases at other Turkish airports. The company is listed on Borsa Istanbul under the ticker PGSUS, where its shares began trading on 26 April 2013; Esas Holding has remained the controlling shareholder since the flotation.

The airline did not start out as a low-cost operation. It was set up on 1 December 1989 as an inclusive-tour charter airline by two Turkish businesses, Net and Silkar, in partnership with Aer Lingus, and it flew its first services on 15 April 1990 with two Boeing 737-400s. Aer Lingus and Net sold their shares in 1994 to the Istanbul bank Yapı Kredi. The turning point came in January 2005, when Esas Holding bought the company; two months later it was converted from a charter airline into a low-cost scheduled carrier. Pegasus's investor relations site says scheduled flying began with five aircraft and six destinations, and it presents the company as Türkiye's first low-cost airline.

Since then the airline has grown through a mix of fleet orders and corporate moves. A joint venture with Air Berlin aimed at the Germany–Turkey charter market, Air Berlin Turkey, was launched in November 2011 and folded into Pegasus on 31 March 2013. In December 2012 Pegasus signed for up to 100 aircraft from the Airbus A320neo family, 75 of them firm, its first order with Airbus. Güliz Öztürk became chief executive on 1 May 2022.

How it works

Pegasus flies a single-class cabin and sells food and drink on board rather than including them. Fares are sold as packages: on international and North Cyprus routes the entry-level Light package includes only an under-seat bag, while the Saver, Saver Plus and Comfort Flex packages add cabin and checked baggage. Domestic fares keep a cabin bag in every package. Unlike many low-cost airlines, Pegasus runs its own flight crew training centre and its own maintenance organisation, Pegasus Technic.

Network and fleet

According to the company, the network reached 158 destinations in 55 countries by the end of 2025, spread across Turkey, Europe, Asia and North Africa. Pegasus has continued to fly to Russia since 2022, when most Western carriers stopped.

The fleet is now almost entirely Airbus. Pegasus's second-quarter 2026 investor presentation listed 131 aircraft at 30 June 2026: 70 Airbus A321neo, 46 A320neo, 6 A320ceo and 9 Boeing 737-800. The same presentation gave an average fleet age of 5.5 years and a planned fleet of 132 aircraft at the end of 2026.

Czech Airlines and Smartwings

The largest recent change is outside Turkey. In December 2025 Pegasus agreed to buy Czech Airlines and its subsidiary Smartwings, and the deal was completed on 1 October 2026 through its Dutch subsidiary Pegasus Europe B.V. after approvals in Turkey, the Czech Republic and other countries where the Smartwings group operates. Pegasus now controls 100% of České aerolinie a.s., 70% directly and 30% through Smartwings. The Czech competition regulator required Pegasus to hand some summer slots on the Prague–Antalya route to another airline. Smartwings continues day-to-day operations under the Smartwings and Czech Airlines brands; Czech Airlines no longer holds its own operating certificate and continues as a brand within the group. Smartwings has its own profile on this site.