Türk Hava Yollari Anonim Ortakligi ($THYAO)

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Turkish Airlines' First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Our speakers for today will be Mr. Murat Seker, Chairman of the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee; and Mr. Metin Gulsen, member of the Board and the Executive Committee as well as the Chief Financial Officer. Gentlemen, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Rob. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Before we begin our financial results, I would like to briefly address recent changes in our senior management. As publicly announced 3 weeks ago, I have been appointed as the Chairman of the Board and the Executive Committee. Having served as Chief Financial Officer since 2016 and as a Board and Executive Committee member since 2021, I have been closely involved in shaping Turkish Airlines' growth strategy and long-term road map. Our new CEO, Mr. Ahmet Olmustur, is among the most experienced executives at Turkish Airlines and has been with the company for the last 26 years. Mr. Olmustur as our Chief Commercial Officer, played a key part in strengthening our network and revenue-generating capabilities. In addition, our new CFO, Mr. Gulsen, brings extensive experience in financial planning and reporting, having held several senior roles within Turkish Airlines since 2017, most recently as Senior Vice President of Accounting and Financial Control. We look forward to executing Turkish Airlines' strategic targets and growth plans. I would like to sincerely thank Professor Ahmet Bolat and Mr. Bilal Eksi for their leadership and dedication at Turkish Airlines over the years. Their vision and contributions were instrumental in shaping Turkish Airlines' strong global position. We are grateful for their services, and we wish them continued success in their future endeavors. With this transition, we believe our leadership structure remains strong and well positioned to navigate current uncertainties while supporting our strategic priorities and growth ambitions. Together with Ahmet Olmustur and Metin Gulsen, we have successfully managed multiple periods of disruption in the near past, including the pandemic, Boeing MAX crisis, supply chain pressures, and geopolitical shuts. These accumulated experiences provide us a sound foundation to operate effectively in a highly dynamic environment. In this near term, we are firmly committed to our core priorities of safety, customer experience, and operational excellence while continuing to strengthen organizational efficiency and agility. We will leverage our size, strong balance sheet, unique global flight network, and human capital effectively to reach our centennial targets. With that, let me start by outlining the key recent developments. The first quarter of 2026 was marked by escalating geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, which developed into a war, triggering a sharp increase in fuel prices. While passenger demand across international markets remained broadly resilient, operating environment has been increasingly challenging. Ever-changing news flows, continuous airspace restrictions, ongoing supply chain constraints and engine availability put significant pressure on the airline industry. Against this backdrop, Turkish Airlines once again utilized the flexibility of its global network and diversified business model. Our broad geographic exposure and agile capacity management enabled us to maintain intact operational continuity while adjusting swiftly to regional dynamics. With respect to the ongoing geopolitical developments in the Middle East, we continue to closely monitor the situation and adjust our operations in line with international regulations and real-time risk assessment. Concurrently, we are relocating capacity towards markets where demand continues to be strong, adjusting frequencies where needed, aiming to preserve our revenue quality. From a financial standpoint, the situation is quite volatile and requires close scrutiny. Elevated fuel prices present a major headwind, and we aim to mitigate this impact through dynamic revenue management, route by route capacity optimization, and cost management. On the one hand, there are routes where load factor and yield have improved. But on the other hand, there are also quite a few routes where demand has dropped. It is rather difficult to make a full year projection due to the uncertainty about fuel prices and how strong the demand will be under the current circumstances. Turning to our results. The performance was healthy during the first quarter with each holiday and then the Easter limiting the impact of the war. Overall, capacity increased by over 9% as we carried more than 21 million passengers, representing a 13% year-on-year increase. Load factor improved by 3 percentage points to 83.5%. Operational performance in March was notably strong, making our highest March traffic to date. Load factor improved by more than 6 percentage points year-on-year, driven by robust demand across our network. Most notably, load factor in Asia increased by 11 percentage points, reaching 94%, highlighting the travel appetite in the region. As a result, first quarter passenger revenue increased by 20% year-on-year. On the cargo side, the impact of geopolitical developments on sea freight as well as lack of sufficient air cargo capacity were the tailwinds. In this context, Turkish Cargo increased its total volume and yields by 15% and 13%, respectively, resulting in close to $1 billion cargo revenue. Meanwhile, at the Turkish Technic, external revenues amounted to almost $150 million. Building on this operational performance, we delivered our highest first quarter revenue on record, reaching approximately $5.9 billion. On the cost side, we finalized our collective bargaining agreement during the first quarter, resolving a key uncertainty. This agreement reflects a balanced approach between our cost base and yet recognizing the dedication of our staff. On fuel side, due to the lack in physical settlement, the impact of elevated kerosene prices was not fully reflected at the expenses. As a result, EBITDA rose by 16% annually to almost $770 million with a margin of 13%. Net income recorded as $226 million, supported by the contribution of -- from our investment portfolio. Looking ahead, future visibility remains low amid ongoing developments. While near-term demand trends remain positive, we expect to see a combined material negative impact of seasonality of the Eid, the conflict in the Middle East, and escalated fuel prices in April. Future performance will be affected by how the current situation progresses in the coming weeks. In closing, we remain firmly committed to progressing toward our long-term objectives with discipline under unprecedented shifts in the geopolitical landscape. Despite the current volatility, our diversified business model reinforces a resilient profitability profile with more durable EBITDA performance compared to our peers. This reflects our proven track record in navigating past periods of disruptions through our world-leading international network, strategic location of Istanbul, and our competitive cost base. I will now pass the call over to our new CFO, Mr. Gulsen, to elaborate on our results and provide additional insights.

Thank you, Professor Seker, and good afternoon, everyone. It's a pleasure to be joining you today for my first earnings call as Chief Financial Officer of Turkish Airlines. Having worked closely with Professor Seker and our finance team over the past decade in various financial leadership roles, I have had the privilege of contributing to many of the strategic and operational and financial initiatives that have shaped our company's trajectory. Throughout this period, my focus has been on strengthening our financial planning, reporting, and overall capital structure while supporting Turkish Airlines' long-term strategic objectives. I'm honored to take on this expanded responsibility from Professor Seker and look forward to advance our disciplined financial approach as we navigate an increasingly dynamic operating environment. With that, let me now move on to the details of our financial results. As briefly outlined earlier by Professor Seker, the first quarter was shaped by uncertainties related to the war in the Middle East, the unprecedented rise in fuel prices and evolving overflight restrictions. Despite these disruptions, we adapted quickly and managed capacity with agility. As a result, we increased passenger capacity by 9% year-on-year, maintaining operational continuity even as flight activity in certain Middle Eastern markets declined by more than 80% during the quarter. In the first quarter of 2026, transfer traffic expanded by more than 10%, growing meaningfully faster than direct traffic and further reinforcing our competitive position as one of the most effective connectors between Asia and Europe. Demand from Europe, Africa, and Asia to Turkey remains supportive, contributing positively to our overall traffic performance. In this context, our diversified regional capacity allocation reinforced by active capacity management continue to provide a natural hedge against demand volatility. We also observed sustained adoption of direct sales channels as the structural shift in our disruption model facilitates greater capabilities for capturing ancillary revenue and improved cost efficiency. Looking more closely at region traffic, Asia stood out as the leading contributor during the first quarter despite an increasingly complex operating backdrop. Demand trends in the region were robust, backed by capacity constraints among certain competitors and resulting shifts in traffic flows toward our network. Over the quarter, we expanded capacity across key markets, including China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Japan, Singapore, and Malaysia. This growth was effectively absorbed by demand with passenger traffic increasing by 19%, resulting in 5 percentage point improvement in load factor to 90.2%. Performance accelerated further in March when the peak impact of the war drove load factors as high as 94%. The region also benefited from a healthy mix of transit and corporate traffic while notable performance in markets such as China supported both traffic and revenue generation. Australia also contributed positively to regional results, particularly in Sydney, where a 41% increase in capacity translated into almost 80% rise in revenues. Africa maintained positive momentum during the quarter, while North African routes were partially affected by disruptions in Middle East traffic flows. This impact was effectively mitigated by increased demand from Asia. Seasonal strength related to Ramadan holiday, together with favorable performance in leisure destinations such as Mauritius and Seychelles supported both traffic volumes and pricing. As a result, first quarter capacity increased by 13.4%, yield rose by 14%. Forward-looking trends also remain encouraging in the region. In response to rising fuel costs, we actively refined regional capacity while selectively evaluating additional optimization opportunities. In Europe, the demand environment was mixed. Local demand towards Turkey softened across several major origin markets, particularly in Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Belgium, where aggressive capacity additions by competing carriers continue to pressure point-to-point traffic. The prolonged disruption throughout the Middle East also weighed more heavily on Balkan markets, creating further pressure on select regional flows. Nevertheless, these headwinds are offset by increased transit traffic towards Asia, Africa, and other international destinations, while premium cabin demand also recorded a significant increase year-on-year. We are also reassessing capacity and frequency deployment across multiple markets, particularly on routes such as Sarajevo, Zagreb, Podgorica, and Porto, where elevated fuel costs are increasingly influencing profitability. Concurrently, strategic growth opportunities remain present. Additional daily frequencies to Amsterdam are being introduced by -- introduced beginning in May to capture available slot opportunities while new launch destinations such as Yerevan in Armenia are already performing ahead of expectations and contributing positively to regional performance. In Americas, we closely focused on demand sentiment and continue to proactively manage network deployment. Capacity has been selectively reallocated from certain North American markets towards higher-yielding regions, particularly Asia. At the same time, Latin America has maintained its positive trajectory. Looking ahead, Turkey's qualification for the World Cup is expected to provide an additional tailwind for summer demand with bookings accelerated materially following the participation announcement. In response, we have already introduced incremental capacity to key hosting markets to capture this opportunity. Overall, our first quarter operating performance remains robust. With passenger capacity increasing by 9.4% year-on-year and passenger numbers rising by almost 13%, surpassing 21 million. Load factor improved by 3 percentage points to 83.5%, reflecting effective capacity management and sustained demand despite a highly volatile operating environment. In the first quarter, total revenues increased by 21%, driven by substantial growth in both passenger and cargo operations. Passenger revenue performance was positively affected by sustained network demand, particularly in Asia, where shifting competitive dynamics and capacity constraints provided additional support, especially in March. Our cargo business continues to serve as a natural hedge for Turkish Airlines, much as it did during previous periods of disruption. Leveraging our broad global network and operational agility, the segment remains an important source of resilience, helping balance volatility while contributing meaningfully to our overall financial performance. As a result, cargo revenues also increased in the quarter by 30%, fueled by volume growth, strategic capacity expansion, and our ability to respond quickly to evolving market conditions. The first quarter represented a challenging period, particularly for Asia as the Middle East accounted for approximately 16% of its operations, while competitive intensity across European markets also remained elevated. Despite these pressures, AJet continued to strengthen its position as a low-cost platform through measured scaling and improving operational performance. International capacity increased by nearly 40% during the period, driving overall capacity growth of 18% year-on-year, while passenger numbers rose by 22%. This expansion was accompanied by considerable improvement in load factor, which increased by 6.7 percentage points to 85.4%. At the same time, RASK increased by 17%, supported by improved traffic composition and growing contribution from international operations. Turning to our financial performance. The first quarter benefited from a highly favorable demand environment and significantly improved cargo performance, which drove notable top line expansion passenger operations remained the primary revenue driver, bolstered by both volume and unit revenue growth, while cargo revenues positively affected from constrained global supply conditions and shifting trade dynamics. On the expense side, the delayed cost impact of fuel prices for the quarter partially mitigated the pressure. As a result, EBITDA increased by around 16% to almost $770 million with a margin of 13%. Contributions from our investment portfolio remained supportive for the net income, which realized at $226 million. We recorded around a 7.5 percentage point increase in total cost per ASK during the first quarter. The rise was within our expectations and primarily driven by higher ex-fuel unit costs, reflecting the impact of the new collective bargaining agreement, seasonally lower capacity production and ongoing operational inefficiencies related to GTF groundings, higher airport ground handling and passenger service expenses also contributed to the increase, partly reflecting structurally elevated airport fees in Europe as well as broader inflationary pressure in Turkey. On the fuel side, although market fuel prices increased sharply in March, lack in physical fuel settlement limited immediate impact on fuel cost, partially moderating overall unit cost pressure. Turning to our balance sheet. We generated $200 million of free cash flow during the quarter, enabling an increase in on-hand liquidity to around $9.4 billion. Strong liquidity position provided us with meaningful financial flexibility at the current backdrop, reinforcing our resilience against ongoing market pressures and positioning us well to navigate future uncertainties. Net debt increased marginally to $8.4 billion, mainly reflecting ongoing fleet investments and currency impacts. Overall, our balance sheet remains firm, underpinned by disciplined financial management and substantial liquidity reserves. Looking ahead, visibility for the remainder of the year remains exceptionally limited given the situation. Under the current environment, providing a reliable full year outlook remains increasingly difficult, and we continue to approach forward planning with caution. That said, based on currently available conditions, we aim relatively measured growth in the second quarter with capacity projected to increase by around flat 2%. At the same time, ex-fuel unit costs are expected to rise around 10% to 14% primarily driven by lower production levels due to extremely high kerosene prices. Importantly, the full financial impact of elevated fuel prices will become more visible in the second quarter as settlement effects diminish. Accordingly, while demand trends remain relatively supportive, EBITDA growth is currently expected to range between 2% to 8%, subject to how geopolitical and fuel-related developments evolve. We remain highly focused on proactive network management, cost control and constantly monitoring the developments. Given the fluidity of current environment, we stand ready to adjust our plans dynamically as conditions evolve. With this, we conclude our presentation and continue with the Q&A session.

Thank you very much. A big thank you to our speakers for today, Professor Murat Seker and Mr. Metin Gulsen. Gentlemen, thank you for your presentations.

[Operator Instructions] And with that, back to our speakers for those written questions. Gentlemen?

Thank you, Rob. This is Fatih, Head of Investor Relations. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. It was indeed an eventful quarter. We got actually more than 30 questions. Murat will help us as much as he can. And I'm starting with the first question. Murat, what was the impact of the Middle East conflict on your March results?

Thank you, Fatih. Well, March was a particular month. Actually, through the March, in January and February traffic results was going quite well, which eventually continued during the month of March too. Even though because of the war and as we mentioned in the presentation, we had to cut capacity in the month, load factor was up by 3 percentage points. Passenger revenue was up by close to $200 million and about more than 10% is coming from a yield improvement. And in cargo, even though the volume did not increase, but because of the yield, just in the month of March, cargo yield was up by more than 25%, we saw a significant improvement in cargo revenue. And as we expressed, it reached close to $1 billion. On the negative side, on the expenses side, the impact of the fuel price increase did not hit us in March. So we saw the net positive momentum of the increased demand or lack of competition. So overall, net negative impact of this war, which we expect to be around $200 million was not reflected in the March results.

Thank you, Professor Seker. I'm counting another Middle East question. How did you manage the excess capacity from airspace closures and particularly which regions absorbed it best?

So as we listed, there was around 10 countries where we stopped operation and they amounted around 6% of our overall ASK capacity. Due to the demand decrease on Middle East to America corridor, flights to and from Americas, North and South America was reduced. And we put this capacity to Far East region, South and Central Asia region and Africa region, certain countries in Africa where the demand continued to be strong. Decreased activity of the carriers from the region also led to be able to get some of the demand, extra demand from Europe to Asia corridor as well. And we have been planning additional frequencies in the coming summer season in cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Colombo, some exotic destinations like Maldives and Seychelles, Accra, Dar es Salaam. Overall, currently, 37 additional slots were secured in mainly Far East and Central Asian countries. And based on the rising fuel prices, we also reduced some frequencies or discontinued some of our routes that could not cover their contribution margins. Some of them are in Europe, some in Africa, and some in Central and South Asia.

Oil price, especially jet fuel increased by around -- almost doubled, more than doubled actually. And with this unprecedented increase, are you currently seeing any adjustments, tweaks to your capacity plans?

Definitely. And we have been very selective and dynamically monitoring each route, what is the contribution margin, what is the network contribution of that route and destination and accordingly, making adjustments on the frequencies or putting the old route on a hole. So overall, the jet price in the destination, the demand, the route profitability are being monitored closely. Accordingly, we channeled 3% of the capacity from Americas to Far East with stronger-than-anticipated demand. And in the summer -- in our summer widebody schedule, Middle East capacity was reduced, will be reduced by about 30%, while Central and South Asia capacity will be increased by 9%. This reallocation is going to optimize our network mix and improve the alignment with the evolving traffic flows and revenue opportunities. Overall, with give and takes, we will be -- probably have a net 1% increase or flattish ASK growth in 2026, whereas our budget was close to 8% to 9% levels. So eventually, we will have some reductions, but we will try to allocate the capacity to the routes where we can have the highest return.

Professor Seker, our investors are particularly curious about the demand flows and the state of the business operations. And are you seeing any structural shifts in the booking curve after the events?

Indeed, we have seen it. It's -- we are sort of living an era like we used to see during the pandemic. The reservation period of individuals or business travelers have shortened. They don't -- we don't see long-term bookings. So way in advance, forward reservations from today to the month of June, July, August look negative. But as we get closer to the day of operation, like the ones in April and May, we see there is still a positive momentum. So overall, there is still long-term lack of visibility for the long term. But for the short term, demand seems to be strong, which is something we are seeing in the load factors. So especially in the intercontinental operations, we see the network -- sorry, the operation is strong, and there is a positive momentum like in April and May months, load factor in the selected long-haul destinations was close to 2 percentage points higher than last year. In particular for the TK, for our main brand, we had a very strong Easter period. The capacity was about 7%, 8% higher and the revenue was 20% higher. And in AJet, it was weaker because of their lack of -- or because of their higher reliance to the Middle East region compared to Turkish Airlines. They have had about 17% capacity growth in this quarter, but the RASK was down by more than 10 percentage points. So if I look at the other regions, as I said, the demand from Europe to Far East is very strong, like cities like Sydney, Melbourne, Tokyo, Singapore, we have been seeing both the capacity increase and the load factor increase. And in Africa, too, we are seeing a positive forward booking as we are filling a significant amount of demand capacity there. The only region probably that is not responding very strongly at the moment is the demand to Turkey. We have been seeing some drop from Europe to Turkey traffic. And we are hopeful that as we get closer to the travel months in summer, like June, July, August and September, we will see higher reservations. But at the moment, that is one of our weak spots.

Thank you, Professor Seker. With today's announcement about tourism demand to Turkey. Are you -- how do you see the trajectory for the upcoming months?

So actually, we announced -- our Ministry of Tourism announced a very strong first quarter results. In January, incoming tourists to Turkey was up by 6%. Then in February, we saw a marked decline. And then in the month of March, we saw, again, a very strong increase of 8% in the incoming tourists to Turkey. Also, tourism revenue increased in the month of March. But probably for the second quarter, we will see some weakening. I mean there was an impact of, of course, as we are close to the war zone, even though there is not a direct involvement of Turkey, and we are playing a very geopolitically strong standing against finishing this war, but it had an impact in the reservations, especially group reservations. However, on the contrary to that, we saw that from Far East region, for example, even though there were significant group reservation cancellations to Turkey, we saw an increase in the individual reservation, individual traffic. So overall, there is a mixed picture on the forward reservations for the summer bookings to Turkey.

Does the recent increase in domestic air fare cap in Turkey sufficient to cover costs? And if not, why haven't you decreased your capacity?

I mean we're trying to manage the domestic capacity very smartly. As we have been about 1.5 months into this war, we really have received a lot of mixed signals about when this war could end or how long it could last. So we did not act quickly and cut a lot of capacity so that the opportunity cost should not be high. But as we get closer to the summer months, we feel like there is some plateau in where this oil price could sit. And accordingly, we are considering in making capacity adjustments in the domestic market as well as in our international operation. As I said earlier, we have cut -- we have stopped flying to 21 destinations. Some of them until the end of the summer '26, some of them until the end of the winter '27 season. And similarly, we will make an adjustment, making some changes in the domestic routes. But I also must add, in the ticket prices in Turkey, there is a ceiling on the domestic ticket prices. And there has been actually about 30% increase in Turkish lira terms in that cap, so which has put a lot of relief on our domestic market revenue. But still we will be considering making some frequency reductions going forward.

What about adjustment to ticket pricing and any surcharge developments similar to the actions that our peers undertaken?

We have done similarly in probably -- in the 18th of March, I think, in the like 2 weeks into this war, we have made fuel surcharge adjustments in more than 150 destinations. And then towards the end of April -- beginning of -- sorry, beginning of April, we have made a second adjustment on the surcharge, which have not affected the load factors and affected -- has not affected the capacity, but we have been able to benefit from fuel surcharge increases, which we have done twice so far. On top of that, in addition to the base ticket fare, there is quite a bit of an ancillary revenue items that we have made adjustments. Overall, there were more than 10 different pricing items we have increased, and we have so far seen about $100 million additional revenue from those ancillary items.

Regarding premium cabin performance compared to economy, did you see any change? And how is this performing?

I mean, the premium segment has been more resilient than the economy class to the war. Our yields, the improvement in the yield that we have seen in the first quarter was 4 percentage points higher in the premium segment than the economy segment. And especially in both March and April, business class loss factor was 5 percentage points higher than last year. And in the long haul, in particular, in Americas, North and South and the Far East region, we have been seeing very strong business class loss factor increase and also business class or premium segment yield factor increase.

Next question is on recovery trajectory following the conflict, especially you've seen an increased load factors in March. And do you expect to sustain your recent market share gains?

So we are seeing that our peers -- carriers in the Gulf are on a strong recovery path on recovering to operation. So -- but this is a case like we have seen again during the pandemic. We have retained some new market share and both in the premium segment as well as in the economy segment. When we put the additional capacity to Far East, we realize that there is a higher connectivity between Africa and the Far East region. So this is a new segment that we -- due to lack of capacity, we have not seen before. And for those potential customers seeing our product, we feel we will be able to retain some of this market, some of this customer base going forward. But how much of it is, of course, yet to be seen.

Obviously, some of the supporters of Turkey is curious about the World Cup and demand -- upcoming demand. Do you have any color on forward bookings?

Well, currently, our network reaches 12 of the 16 destinations where the games are going to be held. And that already provides a strong advantage for Turkish Airlines. And in Los Angeles, for example, we have -- in summer period, we have 3 daily flights. And due to the World Cup and also Turkey being involved in the Cup, we have put additional flights, more than 10 -- I think we have put more than 10 additional flights to the destinations where the games -- Turkish games are going to be held. And forward bookings are looking positive. They are already close to 20% higher than last year in the cities where the games are going to be held.

Moving to AJet, how the company is coping with the current issues?

Well, AJet was more negatively affected than Turkey, the Turkish Airlines main brand because of the -- as I said, their network is more -- their operation is more point-to-point and their network has a bigger weight on the Middle East region. Plus, it was a period where they were putting a lot of capacity in 2026. So the cancellations between the end of February and end of April, end of this month, is going to be around 9% of their overall production in terms of ASK. Well -- and we have been adjusting the frequencies very dynamically depending on the developments and the demand curve. As I said, as there was some cancellations to Turkey, their traffic was affected. But more recently, we are seeing that in the late, last week of April and in early May, some reservations are coming back. So in May, for example, they are expecting the load factors to be about 5 percentage points higher than the budget and the capacity will be lower, so they will be able to utilize their aircraft more efficiently. On the international routes, they are increasing the price. They are being able to increase the prices by about $10, $15 per ticket. And on the ancillary, they also just like I said for the TK side, they are increasing their ancillary revenues. The unit ancillary revenue for AJet was up by 30%, slightly better than their budgeted performance for this year.

Moving to cargo, which performed quite strongly last quarter. Do you have any comment on their performance? And -- have you observed any shifts in demand as a result of ongoing tensions in the Middle East?

So first, let's look at globally. Global cargo picture is definitely showing a shift from sea to air due to the maritime logistic bottlenecks caused by the geopolitical risks in not only Hormuz Strait, but also Bab-el-Mandeb. In February, the Drewry index was on a downward trend actually. But as the crisis started, it had almost a V-shaped recovery and roughly showed a more than 15% increase compared to its level in February. So this has contributed significantly on Turkish Airlines as well as all other cargo carriers unit yield level. Going forward, we expect this higher yield to continue on air cargo front and especially the high fuel prices on major transpacific routes, which -- in which older generation freighters were heavily used, they are eroding in profitability and threatening a supply squeeze. At the same time, because of the lack of capacity of the Gulf carriers compared to the before war level, we are trying to contribute to this gap with our freighters. Today, we have 28 freighters and Turkish Airlines is the third biggest cargo carrier. So this is going to help us going forward in keeping our double-digit yield growth going forward. And we have added, as was mentioned earlier, we have added significant about, I think, 37 additional frequencies with our freighters.

I think this will be one of the most important questions in this call. What is the impact of the sharp increase in jet fuel price on your cost? And what is your base case going forward?

So in the budget, we have assumed the Brent would be around $65 per barrel, about between $60 and $65, and jet would be around $700. Yet we have seen the jet going up as high as $1,600, even $1,700 levels. So our -- we have 3 main scenarios. And -- our base case scenario is that this conflict is going to continue until July-ish and where the jet will be staying around $1,400 to $1,500 levels until July, and then it will start to decline to a level higher than pre-war level, and we will finish the year with around -- with a level close to $1,000. So this scenario brings additional $3.5 billion cost burden on our income statement. And we have to dilute this through taking numerous measures, but this is forming our base case scenario. If the improvement happens faster, then we can see a quicker recovery. And then the burden could come down to $2 billion if the Brent goes down to $85 -- sorry, yes, Brent goes down to $85 from its current level, still $25 higher than our budget, but much more in a way that can be mitigated with the strong demand environment.

Metin, you mentioned about mitigating factors. And with that, I would like to move on to the hedging strategy. What is the current hedge ratios? How do you determine your hedging levels and your strategy?

So we have introduced our hedge policy in 2012, I think, and have revised the strategy in 2017 or '18. Our strategy is to hedge up to around 50% to 60% of our fuel consumption. And we have been implementing this strategy for quite some time. However, after the pandemic -- actually, during the pandemic, as all other -- together with all other major carriers and airlines who do the hedges, we have had a significant amount of losses. After the war, we did not hurry to accumulate that hedge ratio because over the last 6 years, actually, we have been very successfully reflecting the fuel pressure, the one -- like the one we lived in 2022 on the yield -- on our yields, on our ticket prices. We continue to hedge around 40%. And together with the surcharge, we were able to cover a significant portion of our fuel expenses. And if you look at it cumulatively, last 5 years, actually, even if you look at the last 10 years, net impact of our hedge policy on Turkish Airlines balance sheet has been quite limited and quite manageable. So based on that policy, currently, we are hedging close to 40% of our consumption and our breakeven price is $65 -- around $68 and at the moment, we don't hedge. We have stopped doing operation. I mean, we'll monitor the market closely. And when we see an opportunity, we include some new contracts. But overall, we are not continuing our regular hedge policy as the jet price and then the Brent price are very high.

Thank you, Metin. From your comments, I agree about -- it is not just a financial exercise. It is a commercial aspect to it. And maybe with your comments, we may pass the next question regarding hedging more. You already mentioned that. So with that, what percent -- you touched upon the fuel surcharge. And what percentage of the fuel headwind do you realistically expect to recapture without damaging the demand -- it's the main question that we also see other airlines get as well.

Well, our diversified network and the fleet can absorb the risks within a reasonable bandwidth. And historically, we were able to achieve a surcharge rate of around 50%. The fuel surcharges updated according to the related route fuel costs. And we also raised the ancillary fees such as, as I said earlier, seat selection, extra luggage cancellations. As of April, surcharge fuel coverage was 48%. And in the upcoming period, our peer airlines, as they return to the market, the demand trend, consumer behavior, and the macroeconomic setup, they will be critical in our decision-making going forward.

So what should be the increase in RASK, unit revenue per available seat kilometer, to meet our previous guidance figures?

Well, so if you take our base case scenario, assuming that, as I just said, average Brent will be about $90, $95 per barrel and jet fuel average will be around $1,200 per tonne. Year-end fuel costs is projected to increase by more than 50%. Fuel expenses this increase is going to have an additional $3.5 billion burden on our fuel cost. And in order to offset this, year-end RASK needs to improve significantly more than 13%, probably close to 15%. This, of course, is quite a strong increase, considering the given amount of competition in the world. So this might be hard to achieve, but that's what is going to be required in order to be able to sink in all of the pressure from the fuel price increase.

We have a question regarding our ecosystem, subsidiary ecosystem. Do your fuel supply joint ventures such as Turkish Fuel Services and Turkish Opet, provide any cost advantages in the current situation?

Well they do provide cost advantage, but nothing particular for this period. Having it as a subsidiary allows us to consume fuel at a reasonable margin. And we are not concerned with the supply risk. It provides us a comfort on having a supply amount, foreseeable supply amount into the future. But in terms of the price, cost of it, we are paying the market price. And we use -- in Turkey, we use the [ Mediterranean ] index, [ Sefmet ] index and then our prices are being determined by that index. So in Turkey, probably we are paying last month around more than 1,500 per tonne. And same thing holds for Turkish Opet. Turkish Opet, we are using supplying fuel from Turkish Opet in almost a big portion of our Anatolia routes. And they also -- the price for Turkish Opet is being determined by the market rates.

So yes, we've seen a lot of news on this question about the potential jet fuel supply tightness in Asia, Europe, and in some parts of Africa. Are you seeing any limitations?

Since the beginning of the war, we have been holding meetings with our senior executives twice a week. And then every day, they get updates from the stations where we operate. For a while, in the month of April, early April, there were concerns that certain stations, certain countries, mainly in Far East Asia and South Asia, Pakistan, Vietnam, Philippines, and some African countries, there could be limitations of operations. However, so far, currently, we have not stopped operation in any of these destinations because of lack of jet fuel supply. So it is being maintained. So far, the operations are being run seamlessly. And our projection is, it's not going to be a significant pressure on our operations going forward.

Will you update your guidance? And how should we think about your expectations for the second quarter financial results, which Metin may also touch on?

Yes. So unfortunately, making a long-term projection is rather difficult. But in the short term, we have a much more clarity. As it was presented, the capacity in the second quarter compared to the capacity of last year's second quarter is going to be flattish, if not about a percentage point increase. And then the number of passengers will be similar. Revenue because, as I said, due to the cargo yield improvement and then the passenger yield improvement, we will see revenue increasing overall revenue increasing by about 10%. Of course, EBITDA will be negatively affected due to the high fuel price, but how severely is yet to be seen.

Thank you, Metin. Is there any change in the ex-fuel CASK guidance?

Ex-fuel CASK, I mean, even though a lot of our, I mean, fuel cost used to make about 30% and the rest is mainly handling operational expenses. But transportation makes an important portion of that CASK figure as well. So it is, again, difficult how much of this fuel expense is going to be reflected in the world inflation level. But to be on a safe side, I think it's fair to assume that we might see like a low double-digit increase in ex-fuel CASK.

And in response to that, are there any specific plan to manage costs given the current environment?

We are currently working on a program from the improving operational efficiency, employment, staff efficiency, and then delaying -- deferring some of our important infrastructure projects, delaying some of the sponsorships or procurement projects, stopping any work travels and then all of quite a bit of indirect expenses. We are planning to come up with a program close to $1 billion to $1.5 billion worth of cost-cutting initiative. And the details are still work in progress. We have already implemented some, by the way. But definitely, we need to be much more cautious on preserving our liquidity level.

Thank you, Professor Seker. And we got this question numerous times regarding our long-term plans. Could this conflict meaningfully impact your expansion plans such as fleet orders, new route launches or growth at Istanbul Airport?

Definitely not. We have really a very strong growth plan ahead of us. And '26 could be a little hiccup on that long route. But from -- in '27, for example, we are expecting about close to 30 deliveries in fleet growth. And then if we did not have this period, we were planning to put an additional 7%, 8% ASK growth, and we would have about 10 widebodies, 10 of the 30 aircraft coming to the fleet together with TK and AJE would be wide-bodies, which would facilitate our long-haul growth significantly. So that's why when we make the cuts -- cost-cutting projections in 2026, we will be careful not to jeopardize our long-term growth projections. We think this is a transitory problem. It will pass. We don't know how long it's going to last, but it's not going to be an uncertain future. '27, given that our Istanbul hub, we have a significant room to grow, given that our hub and our main destination is still one of the most attractive destinations, Istanbul and Turkey, we will be careful to not risk this growth going forward. So if anything, we might get some delays. But in '27, '28 projections, we are going to try to keep with those targets.

In order to be more specific, could you share the anticipated fleet size by year-end?

Of course. For -- by the end of this year, at the moment, we have around 530 aircraft. By the end of this year, together with TK and AJet, we were aiming to reach a fleet size of almost 570. And next year, 2027, we were expecting to reach a fleet size of 610-ish. So still a lot of aircraft to purchase for Turkish Airlines.

What is the estimated capital expenditures for this year?

So current gross CapEx is expected to be around $5 billion, but this was before the war. And because of it, some of our important infrastructure projects could be delayed and some other CapEx is we have in mind that we were planning to do in aircraft, some renovations, some changes, we might defer them to the following year. So this gross CapEx can come down by about $1 billion.

Could you also give us details about the current situation in GTF engine groundings?

Currently, we have around 120 GTF-powered NEOs and about close to 40 of these are parked. And by the end of the year, it could go up to 50. And then we'll see how it goes.

And again, quick question on dividends. What was the rationale behind it? And how should we think about the potential distributions going forward?

Well, dividend policy actually was very unfortunate. We introduced -- we started to pay dividend last year, as you would remember. And we had the decision internally to pay a dividend of a similar portion, about like a 5% to 7% of our net distributable income. But when we were about to go to the general assembly, as we got into this war, a lot of uncertainties, as you would imagine, was present during the time. Because of that, we have to postpone that decision-making. But going forward, as long as we have more visibility and we make a reasonable amount of profit, as we have guided before, we are very, very keen and interested in paying dividend to our investors.

Thank you, Metin. And about recent equity purchase in SF producer, better, what is your view?

So this is -- SAF production has been an area that we have been monitoring very closely. We have been investigating several investment opportunities. DB Tarim is the biggest biodiesel producer in Turkey, and they have a very long-standing presence in Turkey. We acquired about 40% of this company, and they have a proven technology of SAF production. Together, we are going to invest in a facility to produce SAF. And then we will also make an offtake agreement with DB Tarim to be able to use their output for our own needs. But even we buy all of their production, it's not going to make about 40% of our SAF requirements going forward. Thus, we will keep investigating future investment opportunities, either through direct investment opportunities or through participating in several funds where we can inquire with our partners for SAF production capacities.

We have a question on our strategy. Congratulations on your new Chairman, CEO, and CFO appointments. What are the new senior management's priorities? How will the leadership changes impact the execution of your strategy? At the same time, we have an online question regarding the recalibration about 2023 strategy numbers.

Well, luckily, I must say I was personally very much closely to the heart actually involved in the preparation of the strategy document. And together with actually our current CEO, who was the Chief Commercial by then and our Chief Investment Officer. So we had -- we were the people who prepared the strategy document. Thus, we don't expect any change because of my new appointment and then my view about the strategy would change. What's going to change is, actually, we were already working on it. It has -- we introduced a strategy in 2023, and now we are in the third year into the strategy. Some of the items in that document did not materialize, like we could not get the aircrafts at the time and at the amount we intend to get, certain market developments were slightly different than what we anticipated. So we were already planning to revise our strategy towards the end of this year. We have started to work on that goal, but this was before the change in the senior management of Turkish Airlines. So it is going to happen, but it's not going to be a drastic change from what we have aimed. Turkish Airlines is committed to put the amount of growth, significant amount of growth going forward. We are aiming to reach a fleet size of passing 800 by 2033 and reaching a revenue of $50 billion, but the ingredients, the components of this strategic document are going to be calibrated going forward. We have the same motivation and same belief that we will be able to retain our strategic targets.

We have a couple of more questions, if you allow me. First one is that expected time line and revenue contribution from your premium cabin expansion or product enhancements, if there is any? This is the first question.

So well, I mean, this is -- we have a company, TCI, which we are using -- which is producing our new premium cabin seats, business class seats. So to increase our premium cabin expansion, it has multiple legs. One of them is the product. And then in our old 777 and 330 aircraft, we have old seats, which we were planning to renew with our crystal seat going forward. So that product is hopefully going to come to the operation in the coming year, we are hoping as soon as we can get the approvals. The second piece is the marketing. We are investing in significantly in increasing our marketing capacity especially in our long-haul destinations. And we know that premium segment has a significantly higher contribution to the bottom line. That's a more loyal customer, that's a more profitable customer. So from its marketing to the product, to the service we provide, catering, cabin services, we are committed to increase our premium segment contribution going forward. Even in this year, this particular year, we will be seeing significant increase in -- of our premium segment to the bottom line.

Related to premium offering, your peers is mentioning about leveraging loyalty program. How are you utilizing your Miles&Smiles program to enhance the value proposition?

Sure. Before saying that, I just remembered, another -- an important item to measure our customer loyalty is our NPS score. And Turkish Airlines has been doing a great tremendous job in improving its NPS score. We have increased that score by 18 points and have reached 52 last year. That's by a single company, probably the highest score increase in a single year. Coming to your question about Miles & Smiles, today, we have about 25 million members and 5 million of them are active members. We generate roughly $200 million revenue with our Miles & Smiles program. And we have about 30 airline partners and more than 300 non-airline partners in our program. We are trying to connect our Miles & Smiles program with a few other valuable products of Turkish Airlines like our Turkish holidays, like TK Pay, our online payment system. And with our international collaborations, too, we believe we will be able to benefit more from our Miles & Smiles program. Its profitability is quite sizable with respect to its size, and we aim to have more benefits from the program.

Metin, we have 2 more questions, and then I think we will conclude our call. First, regarding regional jets, are you considering Embraer in anytime soon? This was one of the questions that we get just recently. And the second one is regarding the recently announced partnership with Southwest. What will be the benefits?

About regional jets, we have studied that product for a while ago, and we will revisit that study again. We have been having meetings both with Embraer and Airbus on A220s, we will take a closer look at both of the products again. We see that there are some merits where we can utilize regional jets, but there are pros and cons, of course. So we have to make another evaluation before making a final decision. But we have been, as I said, engaging with both producers very, very closely. About the Southwest, that's, of course, a recent collaboration. U.S. is an important market for us. Currently, directly, we are flying to 14 destinations, but the country is, of course, much, much bigger than that through some of the key gateways of like Atlanta, Boston, L.A., Seattle, San Francisco, we will be able to provide passenger feed to Southwest. And for example, we can provide access to around with their network, combining with our destinations, 80 destinations from Denver. In general, through our U.S.-based partnerships, we can access a total of more than 140 destinations. So as an airline operating so many direct destinations, our partnership strategy in the U.S. is going to be focusing on maximizing connectivity by offering our passengers a wide range of travel options and providing more flexibility. So we see the engagement with quite valuable and productive.

Thank you, Professor Seker. Thank you, Metin, and thank you, our participants for your time. We will be with you on our next quarter. Hope to see you soon. Thank you.

Right. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, speakers. And once again, thank you for your presentations. I believe that is it for today. We thank you for your participation, and this concludes today's conference call. Thank you.