TURKEY: Metro Istanbul has sold the naming rights for the Line M4 station at Sabiha Gökçen International Airport station to Pegasus, Turkey’s largest private airline.
The station at Istanbul’s second airport will be called Pegasus-Sabiha Gökçen Havalimanı İstasyonu (Pegasus Sabiha Gökçen Airport Station) for the three year duration of the agreement.
Pegasus CEO Güliz Öztürk said ’most of our flights are from Sabiha Gökçen, that’s why it’s so valuable to us that the metro station here is named after us’.
Ozgur Soy, General Manager of Metro Istanbul, said metro operators around the world are looking to increase non-fare revenues. ‘In the post-pandemic period, there have been great economic difficulties in the public transport sector, and we have made significant strides to increase revenue from other commercial areas’, he said.
It is believed to be the first commercial sale of a metro station’s naming rights in Turkey; in 2017 Şişhane station on Line M2 was renamed Şişhane – Zemin İstanbul Metro İstasyonu after the Zemin Istanbul business and education centre in the station’s retail space, but this was a municipal venture.
