The story
Orex was formerly the Turkish cargo agent of the Dutch airfreight company Schreiner Airways. It was established in the beginning of 2003 with headquarters in Florya, Istanbul, and started operations in April the same year. The cargo service, initially on charter basis, was carried out with a 45-ton payload capacity Airbus A300F-200 freighter aircraft between Istanbul and Gatwick, London, United Kingdom via Brussels, Belgium. At the end of 2003, a second A300F was put into operation. The company started cargo service between Brussels and Shanghai Pudong, China via Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Orex became so Turkey's first ever cargo carrier operating a national link to the Far East. The frequency of scheduled cargo operations increased from weekly three to five days a week between Istanbul and Gatwick via Brussels.
In March 2004, a 105-ton payload capacity Boeing 747F-200 freighter jumbo jet joined the fleet servicing between Shanghai and Brussels via Istanbul. It became the biggest aircraft in operation ever in the history of Turkish civil aviation. The aircraft was flown by foreign pilots with special permit of the Turkish government since no Turkish pilot certified to operate a B747 was available.
Cargo operations were extended to destinations including Almaty in Kazakhstan, Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan, Dhaka in Bangladesh, Hong Kong, Nanjing and Jiangsu in China.
In addition to its core business of carrying freight, Orex also went into the business of passenger flights on charter basis including touristic trips and occasionally in the Middle East for Hajj, Umrah.
The airline ceased all operations in 2007.
From Wikipedia’s article on Orbit Express Airlines, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3