Nöbetçi Eczaneler
After many years working at Turkish Airlines’ Legal Consultancy, I decided to return to the very unit where my THY career had begun, the commercial department and wait for an overseas assignment.
When I made this decision, I told my then Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, dear Güliz Öztürk, that I didn’t want to go abroad without fully learning the job. She agreed, and although many people found it odd, I attended all the IATA courses on reservations, ticketing, sales, and advanced sales. Everyone said, “You’ll be a director, you won’t be issuing tickets or making reservations.” But I insisted. There’s a bit of Kayseri pragmatism in me: even if I’m not the one selling the product, I need to understand whether it’s being sold correctly.
One November morning, my husband, my daughter, who was about to start high school, and I landed in Dubai at dawn. At the time, the new management had either recalled or retired country managers in 49 countries. The Dubai office had been vacant for six months. A temporary accountant had been acting as director, but she had returned just before my arrival. Together with Serkan Büyükyörük, who, like me, was on his first overseas assignment and is now our Vienna Director, we officially took up our roles.
I knew reservations and ticketing from training, but I knew nothing about running the office. Halil Yorulmazer, the Bahrain Chief, handed over operations, stayed with me for a couple of days, and then returned to Bahrain. After that, Serkan and I were on our own. We had two local employees, Şevket Parker and Abid Aziz, who mostly worked airside on night flights and occasionally supported us in the office during the day.
Explaining this in just a few sentences sounds simple, but in reality, this period was equivalent to completing a master’s and a PhD in life lessons.
Since the previous director had retired and no appointment had been made for six months, the company residence had been vacated and the furniture sold. After staying in a hotel for nearly a month, we finally found a home we liked and moved in. Thanks to dear Dilek Ajun, we managed, despite difficulties, to enroll our daughter in a Lebanese high school. Slowly, life began to settle.
Serkan and I first reviewed and organized every file in the office together. We brought Zafeer Ayrichikandi from our General Sales Agent back into closer cooperation, and re-added Mehmet, who had previously left THY for family reasons and returned to Türkiye.
The THY Dubai office was responsible not only for Dubai but also for Abu Dhabi, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Yemen, and Sri Lanka as affiliated stations. Among these, only Bahrain had active flights; the others operated purely as offline sales offices.
Ironically, after years of avoiding travel while in Legal Affairs, I now had to visit these countries every month to coordinate all commercial activities.
At first, many struggled to accept a woman as a country director. Over time, however, I earned the close friendship and trust of both competing airlines and industry representatives.
In the early days, I would panic whenever the head office requested information or documents. Gradually, I gained full control of operations.
With only three weekly narrow-body flights on this route, my biggest ambition was to operate wide-body aircraft, just like Emirates and Singapore Airlines.
Soon after, Adil Hamade joined our team from headquarters as Station Chief. Originally a dispatcher, half-Lebanese, fluent in Arabic, French, English, and aviation itself, he was an invaluable addition.
The pieces were finally in place. The team was aligned.
It was time to work.
Next week, we’ll continue with the story of boosting sales in Dubai and the journey of turning other routes online.