Turkish Airlines tops European air traffic list again: report
Mountains with snowy peaks seen from the window of the Turkish Airlines aircraft in this file photo from May 2019, Antalya, Turkey. (Shutterstock Photo by Tatiana Zolotareva )


National flag carrier Turkish Airlines (THY) has maintained its top spot with the most European flight traffic, reporting an average of 592 last week, according to official data released Monday.

The European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation (Eurocontrol) air traffic report covering the Feb. 8-14 period showed THY outpaced its European rivals. Air France followed the Turkish flag carrier with 383 daily flights.

Budget airline Pegasus took third place on the list with an average of 263 daily flights.

Meanwhile, Eurocontrol Director General Eamonn Brennan said in a Twitter statement that the low traffic caused by COVID-19 stabilized a bit towards the end of last week but "we are still seeing only one-third of 2019 flights."

According to an infographic shared by Brennan, the average daily number of flights is 8,774.

Among other carriers ranked on the report according to their average daily number of flights, German giant Lufthansa ranked 6th, British airways ranked 16th and Emirates ranked 17th.

Irish no-frills airline Ryanair came in 9th with 157 daily flights and Britain's easyJet ranked 10th with 137 flights a day.

In a statement made by THY to the Public Disclosure Agency (KAP) on Monday, it shared that the carrier hosted a total of 2 million passengers in January with an occupancy rate of 60.3%.