Turkish Airlines launches flights to Australia

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

• Pandora says:

  21 Jan21 January 04:33

  Drops or drops? Can you not see the problem here with the continuous use of the word ‘drops’ on this blog?! If ‘drops’ is going to be used to mean release something new, then maybe ye olde ‘stops’ could start being used again too: ‘Aer Lingus stops London Gatwick flights’. How hard is that hey? ‘Stops’ instead of ‘drops’? 🙂

  • Rob says:

    21 Jan21 January 08:39

    Fair point!

• Lewis says:

  21 Jan21 January 06:08

  Getting to Singapore is very easy and short for me. So booking on the Singapore – Melbourne route looks very attractive

• ankomonkey says:

  21 Jan21 January 07:20

  “Turkish Airlines is taking up some of these traffic rights.”

  Who is taking the rest? Pegasus? 5th Freedom flights (is that what they’re called?)?

  • Rhys says:

    21 Jan21 January 22:31

    No-one, at the moment.

• Stuart says:

  21 Jan21 January 07:58

  TK has pretty good coverage in the UK to fly to IST, i.e. BHX, EDI, LGW, LHR, STN and MAN. I am looking for a Star Alliance FFP to join and TK looks to be one of the easiest to get Star Allaince Gold with and IST seems ideal for my travel getting to many cities is Asia from the UK (LGW).
  Which aircraft are TK waiting for that would allow non-stop IST-MEL? Is it increased weight A350-900 or is it the A350-1000? Assuming it is not going to be an increased weight B787-9. IST-MEL at 14,634km would put this ahead of DOH-AKL as the third longest non-stop great circle route after the two SIN-EWR/JFK (gcmap.com).

  • CamFlyer says:

    21 Jan21 January 09:06

    I use TK for my *A accumulation, having matched BA EC Gold to TK Elite pre-Covid. The downsides are a fixed mileage expiration (extendible for cash) and no UK transfer partners (UA, which I previously used, links with Bonvoy). However, redemption availability and rates on TK metal are good; last summer I redeemed 2 x IST-South Asia in J for 25,000 miles and a small amount of cash (<£100, iirc). I could have gone BHX-IST-South Asia for 30,000 miles, if I could have found sensible return availability into BHX (to pick up the car – no reasonable rail to BHX for me).

  • CamFlyer says:

    21 Jan21 January 09:43

    Note that STN flights are AnadoluJet, now renamed A-Jet. It flies to SAW, and is Y only. The product is fine, however—not quite as good as mainline TK Y, but at least comparable to BA, and it earns miles.

  • Rhys says:

    21 Jan21 January 22:34

    A350-1000 or 777X I believe

• Chris W says:

  21 Jan21 January 08:15

  Surprised TK didn’t pick a 5th freedom leg with less competition than SIN-MEL as SQ and even Qantas have dominated this route for decades.

  Jakarta, Bali or even an Indian city to Melbourne might have had less competition?

  • Nick says:

    21 Jan21 January 10:16

    Always love comments from armchair network planners. Problem is, you can’t just fly where you want, and you can’t just sell where you want. Singapore is very liberal in aviation terms, so TK can sell SIN-MEL as a standalone itinerary. Indonesia is much less open, so they might not be able to fly and almost certainly couldn’t sell the second leg. Assuming there isn’t enough demand to fill IST-MEL standalone (so you could just have an old-school refuelling stop with no boarding or alighting), BKK or HKG are really the only other options here and they’re also heavily served (HKG) and ridiculously low yield (BKK).

    Remember too that there’s a reason some markets are heavily served… there’s clear demand. Going into an unserved route is a huge (and expensive) risk that may not pay off. No competition is only good if there are still enough customers willing to pay you.

    • ADS says:

      21 Jan21 January 11:49

      on a great circle route IST-MEL overflies India … but i’m guessing that India isn’t very liberal when it comes to 5th freedom flights … as well as having yield issues!

    • Callum says:

      21 Jan21 January 12:54

      No need to be so rude… Turkish have publicly stated in the past that they were considering flying to Australia via a mini-hub in Bali. KLM flies from Bali to Singapore (and sells tickets on that leg), it’s clearly therefore something Indonesia is at least somewhat open to.

      Neither is Bali to Melbourne “unserved”. A quick Google says that it gets up to 8 flights a day with 5 different airlines. Though granted Jakarta and the major Indian cities only get 1 or 2 a day.

      What were you saying about “armchair network planners”?

• TeesTraveller says:

  21 Jan21 January 08:49

  The dropping of DUB-LGW is disappointing for 2 other reasons:

  1) on a BA codeshare, the tier points always posted even if you did not board the flight
  2) on an ex-DUB routing, booking the return leg XXX-LHR then LGW-DUB first thing the next morning meant that your bags would definitely get offloaded at LHR.

  • polly says:

    21 Jan21 January 09:03

    You still have the LCY option, for now.

  • ADS says:

    21 Jan21 January 11:55

    looking at monday 29th Jan as an example for the LGW-DUB route
    FR have 7 flights
    EI have 5 flights
    and FR cost about one third the price of EI … so presumably EI are mainly picking up passengers transferring to US flights

    it’s a shame EI don’t just reduce the number of flights rather than pulling out of the Gatwick market completely. Especially as FR will presumably start hiking their prices once EI exit.

  • Alex G says:

    21 Jan21 January 13:04

    Understandable that EI are closing their Gatwick base if they only have one route out of there now (they used to fly LGW to SNN as well). But its a pity that BA don’t take over the route. LGW has a huge catchment area that includes Kent and Sussex as well as South London. And EI used to offer good value one way fares to the US.

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

      21 Jan21 January 13:31

      Indeed if BA started (? Restarted) LGW-DUB there would likely be some switch over of passengers from FR for the avios and TP collector.

      Though it would divert some passengers from the LHR/LCY routes.

      But then there is fitting DUB in with the other routes BAEF flies and wants to fly.

      • JC says:

        21 Jan21 January 17:30

        Is this not a capacity issue at DUB versus IAG business decision. LHR has plenty of EI capacity, and LCY remains feasible for DUB transfer. The west of Ireland thinker in mean thinks they are missing a trick with SNN, especially for transatlantic connections with pre-clearance.

        Disappointed with the cull, epecially as we are based south of the river in London, and who would dare cross the river to fly – in all seriousness competition is good, and while it’s nice to get the TP, flying home with FR for £30 on a Friday evening is a no brainer.

        • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

          22 Jan22 January 02:33

          It’s not been an issue before so I don’t see why it should now.

          Looks to be a “we’re not making any €€€ so let’s fly somewhere where we can” decision.

          And this would be an EI decision.

          IAG allows its subsidiary airlines to manage their own affairs whilst IAG deals with more strategic issues such as purchasing new aircraft.

• Bill says:

  21 Jan21 January 09:00

  “but with reduced Australia – Europe capacity from Qantas it can probably hoover up enough passengers to make it work until it goes non-stop.”

  Should that read Turkish not Qantas

  • AJA says:

    21 Jan21 January 09:19

    No, I think what that sentence is saying is that Qantas has reduced its capacity on its flights between Australia and Europe so Turkish has the possibility of picking up passengers who might otherwise go for fewer stops enroute but will accept another stop just to get to Australia.

    • flyforfun says:

      21 Jan21 January 10:19

      Yes, Qantas used to fly 4 times a day from LHR with flights going via BKK and HKG as well as SIN, and onto MEL as well SYD “back in the day”. They also used to do several EU destinations and look like they are restarting some of them now with project sunrise.

      • John says:

        21 Jan21 January 22:04

        But those ended a decade ago

• flyforfun says:

  21 Jan21 January 10:21

  Any word on if Turkish Airlines is planning other destinations in Australia? And if they fly anything other than 787s? Boeing jets are too narrow down the back thanks to densification and poor design.

  • ADS says:

    21 Jan21 January 11:47

    presumably TK could do a direct flight from Istanbul to Perth with their current aircraft

  • Expat in SJC says:

    21 Jan21 January 13:44

    Route switches to A350 on April 2nd for the whole season.

  • Rhys says:

    21 Jan21 January 22:43

    Sydney is on the cards eventually too, but they decided to go for Melbourne first.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.