About

During her eight year career at Turkish Airlines, Ayşe Akcan has worked on nearly 250 aircraft and engine financings, aircraft purchase agreements and a variety of other matters in both international and Turkish law. Her transactional work over this period has received wide industry recognition. For instance, her work on Turkey’s first enhanced equipment trust certificates (EETC) financing deal for the financing of three new Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, with a certificate amount of nearly $329m, has led to the company receiving the “Runner-up International Bond Deal of the Year” award at the Global Financial Conferences in 2015. Akcan also received praise for her work to ratify the application of the Cape Town Convention in Turkey by leading the Turkish Airlines and Turkish Civil Aviation Authority, and becoming the first Transacting User Entity (TUE) Administrator in the country. At present, Akcan is involved in examining agreements for the purchase of 40 brand new Boeing 787-9 “Dreamliner” aircraft – a deal which could be worth up to $11bn. This year, she also made an impression with her work on improving the operating efficiency of the legal department by making a suggestion to company management to introduce specialization groups. ‘I believe such a change will lead to us having a much more dynamic structure with a standardised and faster business flow,’ she explains. ‘Company management has decided to consider this suggestion and took the first steps to apply them by the beginning of 2018’.