The impact of direct air transportation on Türkiye's exports

The transport sector is one of the least visible but vitally important components of the global economy. The air transport sector, on the other hand, continues to grow rapidly as one of the leading sectors between passenger and freight transport and transport modes, contributing both to foreign trade and to the country's economy. In the global economy, international air transport has a special importance for developing countries to control world trade and share the benefits of globalization. As a matter of fact, products subject to import or export are subject to air transport services. This research aims to comprehensively analyze the impact of direct cargo and passenger transport from air transport on Turkey's export dynamics. In this direction, panel data analysis was applied using the data between the years 2015-2022 in the study. The data on the number of passengers and cargo flights used in the study were obtained from the Turkish Airlines (THY) database. In addition, the export amount, which is another variable of the study, was obtained from the Turk,sh Statistical Institute (TUIK) foreign trade statistics database. The results obtained from the study show that the number of direct cargo flights and passengers carried out by Turkey to another country has a significant impact on its exports to that country.