Turkish Airlines profit almost triples, plans $3b investment

Istanbul: Turkish Airlines posted a 2014 net profit that almost tripled on Wednesday and unveiled plans to invest more than $3 billion (Dh11 billion) mostly on its fleet, partly financed by a bond issue in the coming months. Net profit rose to 1.82 billion lira (Dh2.7 billion) from 683 million lira and in line with a Reuters poll forecast of 1.81 billion. Sales rose 29 per cent to 24.1 billion. The airline said it and its subsidiaries planned around $3.74 billion in new investment this year, most of it on increasing its 261 fleet of aircraft. Chairman Hamdi Topcu told a news conference that the company was in the final stages of a planned bond issue to diversify its sources of aircraft financing and that the issue was expected to be completed in the first half of the year.