Our Corporate Governance Performance
Pegasus Airlines enjoys a rich corporate governance culture shaped by a welcoming approach and desire for continuous improvement.
We are proud of our heritage of good corporate governance practices, some of which date back to the launch of our low-cost scheduled flights business in 2005. These practices are backed by an independent Board of Directors with a global perspective on aviation, a strategy-driven, highly motivated, and successful management team, staff, and an accountable and transparent shareholder and stakeholder communication.
After the initial public offering of our shares in April 2013, we fully complied with the mandatory Corporate Governance Principles published by the Turkish Capital Markets Board and substantially complied with the non-mandatory Corporate Governance Principles. We are the only BIST Corporate Governance Index member to have obtained a qualifying corporate governance compliance rating within the same year of an initial public offering. We continuously improved our corporate governance compliance rating over the years.
Pegasus Airlines was the highest-ranking aviation company in the BIST Corporate Governance Index, rated at 97.1% in 2022.
Sustainability Reporting
Pegasus Airlines publishes a standalone Sustainability Report since the end of 2020. Our sustainability reporting follows the Sustainability Principles Compliance Framework published by the Turkish Capital Markets Board.
Our Corporate Sustainability Report summarises our compliance efforts and sets out the framework of these efforts under four main headings:
● General Principles
● Environmental Principles
● Social Principles
● Corporate Governance Principles
In line with these principles, the report lists every compliance item under this Sustainability Principles Compliance Framework and provides information and references on our compliance efforts under each heading. We also relate our actions, explained in detail in the report, to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).
Our greenhouse gas emissions inventory, governance, reduction targets and efforts have been reported via Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) Reporting since 2015. Pegasus Airlines was awarded B, A-, B and B scores in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022, respectively. These findings led us to be one of the most highly-ranked airlines in the world.
Pegasus Airlines is proud to be the first airline in Türkiye to have committed to the UN Global Compact framework in 2019. Our Enhanced Communication on Progress was published on the UN Global Compact website in October 2022. With this publication, we became one of the only two "Early Adopter" airlines in the travel and leisure industry to voluntarily implement this new format a year before its full launch. UN Global Compact initiated the Early Adopter program to add value and streamline the Communication on Progress (CoP), the annual disclosure requirement for participating companies of the UN Global Compact. The new digital CoP platform will allow participating companies to comprehend, measure, track, and disclose their progress on the Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact and their contribution to the UN SDGs.
Pegasus Airlines continuously evaluates different sustainability reporting, rating, and verification tools and will consider expanding our reporting scope in the coming years.
Sustainability Linked Financing
Since 2022, Pegasus Airlines is aiming to incorporate its sustainability performance into financing transactions. At the end of 2022, Pegasus Airlines closed the first-ever sustainability-linked aircraft-secured term loan with EX-IM support.
The transaction was led by Société Générale and was guaranteed by UK Export Finance for the financing of ten new Airbus A321neo aircraft. The highly innovative transaction is remarkable in several respects: it is the first-ever aircraft export credit facility incorporating sustainability-linked features, as well as the largest aircraft-secured sustainability-linked term loan executed in the market to date and the first one to be verified by a Second Party Opinion provided by an independent ESG ratings and analytics agency.
The terms of the financing are indexed on Pegasus Airlines’ future achievements in respect of two ambitious sustainability-linked Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): carbon intensity of flights and gender diversity in management positions.
Independent Rating & Verification Initiatives
Pegasus Airlines obtains independent ratings on various performance and reporting initiatives.
We are the highest-ranking aviation company in the BIST Corporate Governance Index, rated at 97.1% in 2022.
We have been reporting our greenhouse gas emissions inventory, governance, and reduction targets and efforts through Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) Reporting since 2015. We were awarded B, A-, B and B scores in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022, respectively, and remain among the highest-ranked airlines globally.
We are also a participant in the BIST Sustainability Index, having fulfilled the eligibility criteria based on an independent review carried out by Refinitiv ESG. Per self-reported 2021 data, Refinitiv ESG ranks us as 27th out of 120 passenger transportation services companies. Our emissions, human rights, community, management, and overall governance scores rank in the top quartile.
