Turkish Airlines has published the results of the first year of the Istanbul Stopover program, which allows the company's transit passengers to stay in a hotel in Istanbul for free. Over the course of a year, 14 thousand passengers used the service, a significant portion of whom were Russian, reports Travel.ru’s own correspondent.
The program is available to passengers who have a layover in Istanbul of at least 20 hours. They can get a free stay at a four-star hotel in the Sultanahmet area for one day when flying in economy class, and for two days at a five-star hotel in another central area of Taksim when flying in business class. The ticket must include a roundtrip flight on Turkish Airlines, and the country of departure and arrival must be the same in both directions. Transfer to the center of Istanbul is not included in the offer.
The service is currently available to passengers from 19 countries, including Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. The list of destinations is also limited – when departing from Russia, it includes Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Portugal, Greece, Georgia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Croatia, Malta, Israel, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the USA, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Panama, Cuba, Venezuela, countries in Africa and East Asia, as well as Prague, Vienna, Belgrade, Baku, Bucharest.
The program was initially launched in March 2017 for passengers from Pakistan, with flights from Russia added in June of the same year. The program has been expanded periodically, including both new departure points and a selection of destination countries. Now, Turkish Airlines intends to expand the offer to flights from a dozen more countries, including India and China.
Of those who used the Stopover program, 62% were flying with Turkish Airlines for the first time. 73% of program participants said the Stopover service was an important factor in their choice of carrier.
Source: travel.ru
