General Sales Agent, Kales, has won a tender to become Turkish airline, Pegasus’ new cargo sales agent in the German market. Pegasus is traditionally very strong there, connecting many cities with destinations in Türkiye and the Middle East. The low-cost carrier which is based at Istanbul’s Sabiha Gökçen Airport, had a total turnover of 2,4 billion euros in 2022, and generated a profit of 431 million euros. It is the number two in Türkiye with 25% of the traffic share, surpassed only by Turkish Airlines.
Since Tuesday (16JAN24), GSA Kales has been responsible for ensuring that the lower deck compartments of Pegasus-operated passenger aircraft on routes from Germany to Turkey or beyond, are well-filled with freight. The sales agent secured the contract from ABDA Cargo Services DMCC. ABDA is the exclusive global sales agent for World Cargo Solutions (WCS). WCS in turn provides Total Cargo Management (TCM) services to Pegasus and a number of mandate airlines such as Flynas, Corendon Airlines, Jazeera Airways, Neos Air, World2Fly, and Nile Air.
Division of labor
When asked, WCS Network Director, Christian Weidener confirmed the new TCM focus of his company, which implies a division of labor with Kales. “This step enables us to present the air freight product of our mandate airline Pegasus differently to the markets,” the WCS executive stated. He also confirmed that the Turkish budget carrier does not intend to operate freighters. This option had been considered by the carrier’s management a few years ago, but was finally skipped.
Turkish airline bears a Greek name
The name Pegasus comes from Greek mythology and stands for a winged horse that could fly. It is headquartered in Istanbul and is a big catch for GSA Kales, even if CEO, Sebastiaan Scholte, diplomatically says: “Every customer is equally important to us.” Pegasus currently serves nine destinations in Germany (BER, CGN, DUS, FRA, HAJ, HAM, MUC, NUE, STR). In total, it conducts around 120 flights [sic!] per week, mainly using Airbus A320 neo/ceo and A321 neo aircraft. The abbreviation neo stands for ‘new engine option’, ceo means ‘current engine option’. The Airbus fleet is supplemented by Boeing 737-800s. The airline operates a total of 109 passenger aircraft and has a further 68 on order.
Many pennies make a dollar
According to Kales manager, Nouri Neller, the aircraft variants just mentioned offer a cargo capacity of between 1500 and 2000 kilograms per takeoff. However, this depends on the number and weight of passengers’ luggage. Yet even assuming an average load factor of 1.7 tons per flight, the total amount that Pegasus could fly out of Germany each week would add up to 200 tons. This is almost equivalent to the capacity of two B777 freighters.
WCS manager, Weidener confirmed that the utilization of Pegasus’ German flights has been good to satisfactory to date. He did not want to comment on the question of what volumes he expects Kales to deliver to fill the fleet’s lower decks in future.
Demanding customer
All in all, Pegasus is an exciting but also demanding new customer for manager Neller and his sales team. Instead of large consignments, it is mainly smaller goods that make up the bulk of the volume. For example, ship spares, aircraft spare parts, medical test kits, automotive parts, and similar items.
This said, Pegasus requires quite complex and labor-intensive services from GSA Kales, with a high level of support and personnel deployment. “We will be hiring new employees to perform the job according to the required quality,” assures Nouri Neller.
