Airbus saw its order total for the A320neo rise above 2,000 as it executed the largest sale ever involving a Turkish carrier, the manufacturer announced Friday. Turkish Airlines has signed a contract covering “up to” 117 A320-family narrowbodies, consisting of 25 current-generation A321s, four A320neos, 53 A321neos and options on another 35 A321neos. 

Turkish expects its fleet size to reach 375 once it takes delivery of all the new airplanes. In the process, it said, the average age of its fleet will decrease from 6.6 years to five years by the end of 2020.

Plans call for the airline’s current fleet of 211 airplanes to grow to 235 by the end of this year.

Last year Turkish carried 39 million passengers, amounting to a 20-percent increase over its 2011 traffic total and ranking it third among Association of European Airline members in passengers carried. Available seat kilometers (ASK) and revenue per kilometer (RPK) increased by 18 percent and 26 percent, respectively. Despite the increase in ASK, passenger load factor rose by 4.8 points, to 77,4 percent.