Air Service One – Bitesize Analysis of the Day – 23rd October 2025 – Ankara Esenboga Airport

Ankara is the capital of a NATO member country (Turkiye) and yet no flag-carrier of an EU member country currently serves the airport. The closest is Transavia France which has been serving Ankara Esenboga Airport (IATA code ESB) from Paris Orly since July 2022.

British Airways last served Ankara from Heathrow in 2007 before British Midland International took over the route for a year. Lufthansa last served Ankara from Munich in 2018. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has not served Ankara for at least the last two decades.

According to AIR SERVICE ONE analysis of Cirium schedules data, the leading carriers at the airport in 2025 are AJet (a subsidiary of Turkish Airlines) with 63% of seats, Pegasus Airlines with 19%, Turkish Airlines with 12% and SunExpress with 4%. The leading non-Turkish airlines at the airport are Iraqi Airways and AZAL – Azerbaijan Airlines.

This week sees the start of the first ever Ankara services to Barcelona and Madrid (both operating 3-weekly) offered by AJet.

The busiest routes are to ISG – Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport and iGA Istanbul Airport, followed by Izmir and Fraport TAV Antalya Airport. The leading western European routes are Düsseldorf Airport, Frankfurt, Flughafen Wien – Vienna Airport, Munich Airport and London Stansted Airport. Only around 25% of Ankara airport passengers are on international flights in 2024 and 2025 according to DHMI data.

Last year the airport welcomed 12.85 million passengers, still below the pre-pandemic figure of 13.69 million in 2019, and well below the peak of 16.73 million in 2018. Improvements in the high-speed rail network between Ankara and Istanbul resulted in the significant drop in traffic in 2019 versus 2018.