The growth of the Turkish economy is a great opportunity for air cargo, but Pegasus Cargo says it could grow more if it could obtain more traffic rights.

The airline says it says volumes increase by 17 per cent to 11,717 tonnes in 2015 and has increased its sales target for this year. Much of this cargo consists of fresh flowers, textiles, automotive parts, and machine and computer parts.

“We are taking advantage of the great opportunities arising from the growth of Turkey’s economy as the demand for our air cargo business is continuously increasing,” the carrier tells Air Cargo Week.

Pegasus Cargo operates in 97 destinations across 38 countries and aims to expand further across Europe, the Caucasus, Russia, the Commonwealth of Independent States, and the Middle East.

Pegasus Cargo explains: “We expect this expansion to yield a very positive outcome for our cargo revenue which will help us achieve our annual cargo sales targets. We will continue to add new routes to our network based on permissions received from civil aviation authorities.”

The airline says gaining these traffic rights is its biggest challenge at the moment: “Obtaining traffic rights for the Middle East, the Turkic republics and North Africa is a major challenge for us, and there are still new stations/routes that for which we haven’t obtained rights yet.”