A Turkish airline chief described the “hedonistic” attitude of some British holidaymakers after a flight’s entire alcohol supply was drained in just 25 minutes.
SunExpress reportedly said that on a recent flight from a UK airport, passengers had consumed all of the beer and wine on sale within half an hour of a four-hour flight.
Max Kownatzki, the US-German chief executive of the expanding Turkish airline, said: “It’s more high-spend, more hedonistic [in how the British travel].
“We sold out of beer and wine 25 minutes after departure; we haven’t done that in any other market,” he told TTG about a recent flight that was aimed at golfers. It is understood that this accounted for all the alcohol on sale.
He did not say how many passengers were on board, where the flight had departed from and where it was going to - but the majority of departures are for coastal resort city Antalya. It was also not said how much alcohol was consumed.
In the TTG profile, Max Kownatzki set out his blueprint to grow SunExpress as a tourist and commuter airline in a similar vein to that of Jet2.
Despite the thirst of British consumers for onboard beverages, the business is looking to increase the number of UK passengers it accommodates every year.
The airline flies from Birmingham, Edinburgh, Gatwick, Luton, Manchester, Bristol and Newcastle. It will add Leeds Bradford and Stansted as departure points for summer 2024.
Eighty of the flights that leave the UK are to Antalya, 39 to Dalaman and 15 to Izmir and expansion plans are set to increase its British passenger base from 700,000 to 1.3 million.
Last year, it was named Best Leisure Airline in Europe at the World Airline Awards 2023.
Mr Kownatzki added: “In summer 2022, we had five UK airports – now there are nine.
"Before that, we had some select routes, but nothing major. We are now number three behind Jet2.com and easyJet. We needed to venture further in terms of our network – that made us look at the UK.”
The Standard has approached Sun Express for additional comment.
