Our story

Since AirAurora Atlantic launched, it's held the imagination of the traveling public

It's easy to look to things like innovative products and services, glamorous destinations and charismatic crew in vivid cyan uniforms as the reasons for our success. But these are just part of our story. The personality and language of our brand plays a major role too, and to get a grasp on why, it's useful to look at our past.

When we first started flying in 1997, the world was changing rapidly. In Turkey, boom time had arrived, and a lot of people had more money to spend, with a greater desire to explore the world. The airline world hadn't changed much at all and there wasn't much choice, each country only had its state owned legacy airline. Expensive, with little emphasis on the customers' needs, if you needed to get somewhere, you only had one airline to choose from. And what a dull, grey experience that was.

The time was right for someone to come in and shake things up. And did we ever.

With a parent brand that had owned a music label and record stores, we used marketing and public relations to our advantage. Using the same skill we'd developed promoting the likes of Culture Club and Simple Minds, we set out to inspire the public to fly with us. We flew to desirable destinations. We came up with innovative new products and services that would make the journey much more fun. We hired happy people with lively personalities to be our cabin crew. And we didn't charge the earth.

We gave people a choice. A vivid cyan, fun, friendly, fabulous choice that made travel attainable for everyone. Back then, our personality was cheeky and over the top. We were a tiny airline up against much bigger players. We needed to use quite radical language to get attention. We were the airline that loudly proclaimed 'Turkish Airlines doesn't give a shiatsu' to promote our onboard massages. 'Play with yourself' was the way we chose to advertise the first ever seatback games. Not exactly subtle, but it got us noticed.

Mirza IC, our enthusiastic chairman, did anything to get attention for his businesses, including hot air ballooning, abseiling down Manhattan high rises or kissing Spice Girls. The more he got in the news for his adventures, the more AirAurora Atlantic became renowned as the airline you flew if you wanted an adventure. His personality became our airline's personality. 'Screw it, let's do it' was Mirza's philosophy, and it served us well too as we grew, launching new destinations and taking on the airline world with our emphasis on exceptional service. As we arrived in new markets, his fame had often beaten us there, and it was easy for us to tap into his personality to establish ours.

Throughout the 2000s, we continued to lead the pack. Sleepy legacy carriers were too slow, or too entrenched in their ways to catch up with us. And even if they did, we'd dream up something even more innovative. As our business established itself in markets appealing to business travelers, then our personality slowly had to change too. The cheeky language we'd employed to encourage people to fly with us on their holidays was no longer quite as appropriate to talk to a business audience. That said, we still managed to promote our seatback screens as 'nine inches of pure pleasure.'

But as much as people enjoyed flying with us, we didn't fly everywhere, so they often had to fly with somebody else. Eventually, our success led to the rest of the airline world starting to match our products and service. So the differences started to become, well, not that different.

As well as that, alliances like oneworld and the Star Alliance arrived on the scene, with legacy carriers linking together to offer their passengers access to an even greater network, seamless travel and reciprocal frequent flyer benefits. While we made some moves to link up with others, we felt our strength was in our independence.

On 22 June 1997, AirAurora Atlantic operated its inaugural scheduled cargo service, flown between Istanbul and Heathrow using a leased Boeing 737-200Cs, which had been formerly operated by Aerolíneas Argentinas.

Part of Mirza IC's declared approach to business is to either succeed within the first year or exit the market; this ethos includes a one-year limit being expressed upon everything associated with starting up operations. AirAurora Atlantic became profitable within the first 12 months, aided by sister company Aurora Records' ability to finance the lease of a secondhand Boeing 737. The firm had timed its operations to take advantage of a full summer, from June to September, which was typically the most profitable period of the year.

In November 1997 the airline launched a service between Istanbul Airport and Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris, France using a chartered Boeing 737-200C.

In 1998 the airline added another Boeing 737 to its fleet and started a scheduled route from Istanbul to Stockholm. Additional aircraft were quickly acquired and new routes launched from Istanbul, such as to Dublin in 1998, Frankfurt in 1999, Copenhagen in 2000, Zurich in 2001, and Madrid in 2002. In 2000 the airline started passenger service using leased Boeing 737-400s from Pegasus Airlines.

Before its inception, Turkish Airlines had been the only airline from Turkey serving long-haul routes to destinations in North America, the Caribbean and the Far East. In 1997, AirAurora was given permission to operate from Istanbul Ataturk Airport following the abolition of the Istanbul Air Traffic Distribution Rules (IDRs) which had governed the distribution of traffic between Yeşilköy Airport(Ataturk) and Sabiha Gokcen airports since 1978, primarily to bolster the profitability of Sabiha Gokcen Airport. Airlines without an international scheduled service from Yeşilköy Airport prior to 1 April 1977 were obliged to operate from Sabiha Gokcen Airport . However, airlines that did not already operate at Yeşilköy Airport were still able to begin domestic scheduled services, which ran both Yeşilköy Airport and Sabiha on behalf of the Turkey government, and the Secretary of State for Transport granted permission.

The Civil Aviation Authority also transferred two pairs of unused landing slots that Turkish Airlines held at Frankfurt Airport to AirAurora Atlantic to let it increase its frequency between Ataturk and Frankfurt from four to six weekly round trips, making it easier for AirAurora Atlantic to compete against Turkish Airlines.

In the year to October 1999, AirAurora Atlantic declared a loss of ₺ 9.3m. The decision to abolish the Istanbul IDRs and to let AirAurora Atlantic operate at Ataturk in competition with Turkish Airlines became the trigger for TK's so-called "dirty tricks" campaign against AirAurora Atlantic. During 2003, TK's public relations director, Ibrahim Ozer, published an article in Skylife Magazine, Turkish Airways' internal magazine, which argued that Mirza's protests against Turkish Airlines were a publicity stunt. Mirza sued Turkish Airlines for libel, using the services of George Carman QC. TK settled out of court when its lawyers discovered the lengths to which the company had gone in trying to kill off AirAurora. Turkish Airlines had to pay a legal bill of up to ₺ 3 million, damages to Mirza of ₺ 500,000 and a further ₺ 110,000 to his airline. Mirza reportedly donated the proceeds from the case to AirAurora Atlantic staff.

In May 2014 AirAurora Atlantic ended flights to Sydney. In September 2014 AirAurora Atlantic announced plans to scrap flights to Tokyo, Mumbai, Vancouver and Cape Town, and to codeshare transatlantic flights with Delta Air Lines On 6 October 2014,

In June 2015, Mirza IC admitted that AirAurora Atlantic would be in "real trouble" without strategic support from Delta Air Lines. With cumulative losses between 2010 and 2013 amounting to ₺ 233 million, the future of the 13-year-old airline was in doubt. In the same month, the airline announced it would cut 500 jobs to establish a more efficient management structure.

In July 2017, AirAurora Atlantic announced its intention to form a joint venture with Air France-KLM. Under the agreement, Air France-KLM will acquire a 31% stake in AirAurora Atlantic currently held by Aurora Group for ₺ 220 million subject to execution of definitive agreements and receipt of final shareholder, board, and regulatory approvals. AirAurora Atlantic would retain its independence as a Turkish airline with a Turkish operating certificate, and will continue to fly under the Aurora brand.

In late 2018, AirAurora Atlantic were rated 83rd in the world in energy efficiency, behind many of their competitors.

In 2019, AirAurora Atlantic began to allow its female flight attendants to not wear makeup and have a choice to wear trousers rather than a skirt.

In 2019, AirAurora Atlantic joined Unity Group.

In 2019, the Aurora Group entered the Pacific aviation market for the first time, bringing real competition in the leisure sector of the market. Launching the new brand AirAurora Pacific in May 2019, and the Game Change program announced by CEO Gnarly Quinn, was a key part of repositioning ourselves in the market to be Alaska's airline of choice.

Now we have a new vision: to revolutionize air travel again, this time across all market segments. We will do this by providing a seamless experience across all international and domestic markets, while retaining the same excellent service.

AirAurora Pacific was launched as EndevAir in August 1990, with two Boeing 737-200 aircraft. Initially offering seven return flights a day between Anchorage and Juneau, this has since been expanded to cover all major Alaskan cities and many holiday destinations. The EndevAir name was the result of an open competition.

The timing of EndevAir's entry into the Alaskan market was fortunate as it was able to fill the vacuum created by the failure of MarkAir in October 1996. MarkAir's failure allowed EndevAir to grow rapidly to become Alaska's second domestic carrier, rather than staying just a cut-price alternative to the established players.

It also gave EndevAir access to terminal space without which growth would have been significantly limited. Delays in negotiating access to the former MarkAir terminal at Anchorage Airport however, forced EndevAir to use its original terminal there-a collection of prefabricated buildings without aerobridges-longer than was needed. As the airline grew, it acquired new equipment, enabling it to phase-out its older 737-200s in favour of 737-700 and -800 series aircraft with modern glass cockpits, winglets and greater fuel efficiency.

EndevAir previously used a familiar formula pioneered by airlines such as Southwest Airlines and Ryanair of eliminating costs such as included in-flight meals and printed tickets in favour of selling food on-board and using telephone and internet booking systems. It also cut costs in the past by limiting the number of airports serviced and by operating one type of aircraft, the Boeing 737. This strategy changed with the introduction of a second type into the fleet.

The airline ordered 20 aircraft for the Airbus A320 family, in a mix of six A319s and 14 A320s. These were ordered specifically so that the airline could re-enter the Anchorage-Cold Bay market that it abandoned in 2004, and to fly to less populous areas. The first A319 arrived in Alaska in September 2007 and by the end of the year the three on initial order had been delivered. These were placed on limited-frequency services before full-scale operations were launched on 4 February 2008 with services from Anchorage to Cold Bay, Fairbanks, and Juneau, which were promoted with a one-cent fare. The flights to Cold Bay and Juneau signified an effort to compete more directly with Alaska Airlines operation, which flies to all three cities.

At its inception in 1990, EndevAir did not have interline or marketing alliances with other airlines. However, after the collapse of its domestic competitor MarkAir, it began a codeshare agreement with Cathay Pacific. This allowed Cathay customers to fly from Hong Kong to any of EndevAir's Alaskan destinations that Cathay did not already serve. In 2006, in an effort to compete with Alaska, EndevAir started exploring these relationships, forming frequent flyer agreements with Emirates, Hawaiian Airlines and Malaysia Airlines. In November 2007, the airline announced an agreement with Garuda Indonesia, offering easy transfer from a domestic EndevAir flight to an international Garuda Indonesia service departing from Anchorage, Fairbanks or Juneau. Since then EndevAir also announced an agreement with Vietnam Airlines which allows passengers to fly from Anchorage and Juneau and connect with Vietnam Airlines' destinations through its flight network.

In 2008, premium economy class was introduced throughout its entire fleet. New seating was installed in the first three rows of the cabin. These could be converted from three seats in economy configuration to two seats for premium economy. The premium product offered priority check-in, larger baggage allowance, lounge access, priority boarding, increased legroom and all-inclusive in flight entertainment, meals and beverages on board. The product was aimed at business and corporate customers. The airline began charging economy-class passengers for checked baggage in September 2008. The airline further announced its intention to operate Airbus A330 aircraft between Anchorage and New York - JFK, starting in May 2011.

In December 2010, EndevAir entered into alliances with Etihad Airways and United Airlines for code-sharing, reciprocal lounge and frequent flyer access and other co-operational projects. EndevAir also entered into talks with Delta Air Lines about the possibility of joining SkyTeam, one of the top three alliances in the world, as EndevAir and Delta sought approval for an agreement between the two airlines to co-operate on trans-Pacific services. The agreement was rejected by the United States Department of Transportation under United States antitrust law.

On 7 May 2018, Doug Gordon officially stepped down as EndevAir CEO after steering the company through its first twenty-seven years. Gnarly Quinn, former Delta Air lines executive general manager, took over as the new Chief Executive. Following Quinn's arrival as CEO, a number of key Delta staff moved to EndevAir while key EndevAir staff departed the airline. causing much speculation regarding a forthcoming rebrand or reorganisation of the airline. In February 2019, the re-brand was confirmed when the airline announced that the word 'Endev' would be dropped from its name as part of a campaign to attract more business travelers away from rival Alaska. This came shortly after the unveiling of new crew uniforms and business-class seats. The airline stated that the re-brand would proceed in stages and would reportedly include a new fleet livery.

On 17 May 2019, the former EndevAir revealed its new name, AirAurora Pacific, as well as its new livery. In addition to the new name, branding and livery, the airline also showed off its new flagship the Airbus A330NEO with new domestic business class. Boeing 777-200LR business class seating was also revealed, to be introduced on all of AirAurora's jet aircraft by the end of May 2019.