Turkish budget carrier Pegasus Airlines has launched scheduled flights between Dubai and Istanbul. 

The Dubai–Istanbul flights started on 18th October,  with four flights a week to Istanbul every Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

According to Ali Sabanci, chairman, Pegasus Airlines in the six weeks following the launch of the new route 6,477 passengers had already used the service; and 41% of passengers had paid less than 100 Euro (US$131) for the flight.

"We believe that this region has a huge potential to fly with our competitive prices," said Sabanci. "With our scheduled flights, our 92.42% of on-time performance in the first 11 months of 2012 and our fleet age of 3.12 years old, we introduce our guests to the 'Pegasus way of flying'. Our low cost product is now serving guests in a total of 62 destinations in 26 countries and with our Dubai flights we are serving the fifth destination in Middle East." 

Pegasus Airlines was established in Istanbul in 1990, as Turkey’s well-known private airline company and is part of ESAS Holding which is owned by Turkey’s well-known family Sabancı Family. The airline connects Dubai passengers with 34 international connections.