The number of passengers in the Turkish Airlines (THY) flights to the Far Eastern countries exceeded 5 million in the first 11 months, marking an 8.7 percent upsurge.

The Turkish flag carrier's revenue during the same period surpassed TL 10 billion ($1.86 billion). It aims to further increase the number of its passengers in the Far Eastern market through a sponsorship deal with Premier League club Chelsea which has a huge fan base in Asia.

THY's passenger occupancy rates, revenues, passengers and cargo carried in the Far East, one of its major markets with 35 destinations in 22 countries, have gone steadily up through the years. Passenger occupancy rate to Far Eastern destinations in the 11 months of 2018 soared 2.8 points to 85.9 percent year on year.

The number of passengers it carried during this time, soared to 5,061,304 with an 8.7 percent rise. The amount of cargo and mail it carried increased to 371,434 tons with an 18.1 percent rise. With the opening of the Istanbul Airport, THY will further boost its fleet, destinations and number of flights and will add Indonesia's Denpasar to its destinations.

The airlines' passenger and cargo revenues in the Far Eastern market reached TL 10.641 billion in the first nine months of the year. THY offers the greatest number of flights in the Far East to Chinese cities, with the number of transit passengers coming to the fore in this market. It carries Far Eastern passengers to a number of destinations around the world through Istanbul-connected flights.

Thanks to the possible sponsorship deal with Chelsea, one of the biggest clubs in the English Premier League which is the most-watched sports league in the world with some 4.7 billion TV viewers and has a large fan base in the far east, the Turkish flag carrier aims to further increase its passengers in the market.

In addition, many Chinese businesspeople have investments in English clubs, including Manchester City, West Bromwich Albion, Southampton and Aston Villa. The total fee paid to watch Premier League football matches in China, South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong exceeds 130 million pounds. The league matches are broadcast by 225 channels in 108 countries.

If THY becomes Chelsea's transportation sponsor, THY advertisements will be displayed on billboards at Stamford Bridge, the Blues' 42,000-capacity stadium, boosting the recognition of the airline.

In a separate development, THY has decided to allow passengers with excess baggage to pay with point-of-sale (POS) device, without needing to go to the ticket sales office. The integration of the physical POS developed for passengers to carry out the excess baggage payment at counters will avoid passengers from being directed to sales offices, boost customer satisfaction and reduce the intensity due to excess baggage payments at sales offices.

With the help of software development in question, the personnel or passengers will not be allowed to interfere with the excess baggage fee, the excess baggage fee will be questioned on track basis and directed to the POS device. The physical POS application will start with a total of 100 devices for the collection of excess baggage fees at Istanbul Airport and Atatürk Airport. It will be a first in the integration established between the application and POS devices.