Turkish Airlines, which flies to more countries than any other airline, has plans to start flights to Australia soon.
Finally!
Turkish Airlines does not fly to Australia currently and that’s a big gap in the airline’s network. I mean for an airline which has the title of “serving more countries than any other airline” not flying to a whole continent is a dent in the network right? That is soon going to change according to the airline executives.
So the main question is that why is Turkish Airlines not serving Australia? Well, it all comes to the very long distance between Turkey and Australia. They are 9000+ miles route and none of the aircraft in the carrier’s fleet are capable of operating these routes.
Qantas’ B787 Dreamliners (Turkish Airlines also has them) does operate flights between Perth and London, which has a distance of 9,009 miles. But Qantas’ B787s are much less denser as compared to those of Turkish’s, enabling Qantas to fly longer (236 seats on Qantas’ B787s compared to 300 seats on Turkish’s B787s).
So, in reality, Turkish Airlines could fly nonstop from Istanbul to Perth but it all comes to the market demand and it seems that the demand is not just there to support the market.
It also depends on the bilateral air services agreement between Turkey and Australia. Under the current agreement, airlines from Turkey can operate up to 4-weekly flights to Australia. This means that the agreement will need to be expanded, should Turkish Airlines want to offer daily connectivity to Australia and that too to just a single market, let along multiple markets.
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Australia flights planned for late-2023
As reported by Executive Traveller, Turkish Airlines is planning to launch flights to Australia later this year. Ahmet Bolat, Chairman of Turkish Airlines, recently travelled to Australia to outline the airline’s plans. According to him, the airline should finalise flight schedules of Australia services by mid-August 2023 and shortly thereafter, start selling tickets.
Now, the airline is still deciding whether to fly to Sydney or Melbourne, the two biggest cities in the country. According to Bolat, Turkish Airlines is leaning towards Melbourne, due to the Turkish population in the region and the ease of being able to service. A decision regarding this will be made in the coming weeks as aforementioned.
The airline plans to operate the 3-weekly service via Singapore and it hopes to get permission to operate fifth-freedom flights between Singapore & Sydney or Melbourne, meaning passengers can fly between Singapore and Australia without needing to go/come all the way from Istanbul.
Now the question is whether the service will launch as per the timeline or not? Well, it all depends on the regulatory clearances and government approvals. But one thing is for sure, the airline is pretty serious about launching Australia service this time. After all, 3-weekly service is better than nothing.
Featured image by Wikimedia Commons
What do you think of Turkish Airlines’ plans to serve Australia for the very first time? Let me know in the comments section below.
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