Airline offers package holidays including hair transplants and nose jobs
SunExpress, a fast-growing low-cost airline, is offering flights from 12 British cities next summer to places like Antalya, a centre for dental treatment, and Izmir, where clinics specialise in six-pack and buttock implants.
Max Kownatzki, the company's chief executive, said that while traditional beach holidays remained the primary draw, Britons were keener than most nationalities on packages that included medical procedures.
'Medical tours are popular year-round. Everything you can imagine, it's there. There are clusters. Istanbul is big in hair, Antalya is big in teeth, Izmir has implants of all kinds,' he said.
'A seat-only passenger will look for a hair transplant and how to get there, and we can take them. But the tour operators have the same aim as us of diversifying their product portfolio and that is what they are doing.'
According to SunExpress, its summer bookings from the UK are up 22pc this year following the addition of flights from Liverpool and Glasgow, partly driven by people combining nose jobs and other cosmetic surgery with a week on the beach, according to the airline.
Medical tourism is a booming sector, with around 2m foreign patients visiting Turkey's 4,000 clinics last year for procedures including IVF and cosmetic work such as lip flips, nose jobs and breast surgery.
The number of British people receiving medical treatment overseas reached 431,000 in 2023, spurred by long NHS waiting lists and the high cost of private procedures at home.
Almost one in five of those unable to get a dental appointment have also decided to go abroad, according to Ipsos poll results published in March.
A joint venture between Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines, SunExpress has increased UK capacity five-fold to 2m seats since 2022, adding flights from two airports a year on average.
The airline is targeting the UK after securing 38pc of German travel to Turkish cities other than Istanbul, with tourist traffic boosted by visits home by the nation's 3.8m ethnic Turks.
'It can't get hot enough'
Mr Kownatzki said leading discount carriers Ryanair and EasyJet were under-exposed in the UK-Turkey leisure market, with Leeds-based Jet2 providing the most competition.
Golfing breaks are in 'huge demand' from Britons, he said, with Turkey the third-most-popular destination for winter golf after Spain and the Algarve. It is also promoting 'conference tourism' to resorts such as Dalaman as an alternative to London venues where prices soar in autumn and winter.
The chief executive said holiday bookings are extending further into so-called shoulder periods outside the summer peak, though there is no sign of demand easing off in the hottest summer months.
He said: 'I'm asked that question: what do you think about climate change? But I almost think it can't get hot enough. Antalya was 40-something degrees this week, hot and humid, and demand is going up.'
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