News from THY - Turkish Airlines

[hakan]

Turkish Airlines and Ethiopian Airlines Code Share Agreement
06.01.2010

A Free Sale Code Share Agreement has been signed between Turkish Airlines and Ethiopian Airlines (ET). Code share operations will begin as of 15 january 2010. W ithin the framework of ET/TK codeshare agreement, TK will be the operating carrier on Istanbul-Addis Ababa v.v. flights and ET will market these flights by putting its own code and flight number. Flight schedule is as below:

Flight No
Departure Arrival
TK 1146/ET 1721 Istanbul 18:55 Addis Ababa 01:10*1 Every Day

TK 1147/ET 1720 Addis Ababa 02:10 Istanbul 06:40 Every Day

All times are in LMT.

Source:THY Media release http://www.thy.com

[hakan]

After becoming a sponsor to Barcelona FC, THY has now signed sponsorship with another great club: Manchester United.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8473236.stm

Who is next?

[hakan]

THY and Spanair have announced a code share agreement yesterday. More info about the agreement and routes effected can be read on:

http://www.thy.com/en-INT/corporate/new ... x?aid=4410

I guess this is all related to Star Alliance membership.

[hakan]

THY is launching Ankara-Damascus from 27.February.2010 as a 3 time- a week service.

Meanwhile, THY is increasing the frequency of Istanbul Ataturk-Tripoli (Libya) flights from 7 times a week to 11 times a week from 2.March.2010 onwards.

[hakan]

THY has just released a statement to the Istanbul Stock Exchange that based on aircraft availability, THY intends to launch some new destinations this year:

Istanbul-Los Angeles (USA),
Istanbul-Sochi (Russia),
Istanbul-Shiraz (Iran),
Istanbul- Lagos (Nigeria) flights will be extended to Accra (Ghana),
Istanbul-Erbil (Iraq),
Istanbul-Washington D.C. (USA),
Istanbul-Entebbe (Uganda)-Dar es Salaam (Tanzania).

Further information about starting date, frequencies etc. will be released later in the year.

[hakan]

THY has released a statement today that they have placed firm orders for 10x B737-800 and 10xB737-900ER for the delivery period of 2011-2014. It is understood that THY has also placed optional order for another 15x B737/800-B737/900ER for the period of 2013-2015.

[BrightCedars]

Very interesting to see TK adding the 737-900ER. Which is more of an A321ish kind of aircraft in terms of capacity. Now if they don't find the right aircraft for a given flight to maximize revenue opportunities with all these sizes of narrow-body aircraft...

I hope this will mean a more consistent product will span the fleet because that's what I learned from my last trip with them. No concistency in service, no concistency in configuration (two radically different A321s and two rather different B738s).

[hakan]

Very interesting to see TK adding the 737-900ER. Which is more of an A321ish kind of aircraft in terms of capacity. Now if they don't find the right aircraft for a given flight to maximize revenue opportunities with all these sizes of narrow-body aircraft...

I hope this will mean a more consistent product will span the fleet because that's what I learned from my last trip with them. No concistency in service, no concistency in configuration (two radically different A321s and two rather different B738s).

BrightCedars, let's hope THY will get that consistency in configurations on these new ordered planes.

[hakan]

THY is increasing the current 9 times weekly Istanbul Ataturk-Prague flights to 13 times per week from 1.May.2010. It is understood Czech CSA is about to stop Istanbul flights.

[Conti764]

I find it quite amazing how fast THY is growing... I mean, a few years ago, the company was hardly known outside the markets it served and by now it is growing into a full scale network carrier flying to roughly everywhere in the world.

With permition to exaggerate, it is almost the Emirates of the Meditarranean

[hakan]

I find it quite amazing how fast THY is growing... I mean, a few years ago, the company was hardly known outside the markets it served and by now it is growing into a full scale network carrier flying to roughly everywhere in the world.

With permition to exaggerate, it is almost the Emirates of the Meditarranean

Conti764 this is long time coming. It has started many years ago when Mr.Cem Kozlu was THY's CEO. Then all other CEOs and the board members after him kept the momemtum. Also having the same govt. and the Transport Minister for long time helped the case. Flying was very expensive and a privilege for high income people only in the past. All has changed now. The market was opened to competition. Ticket prices reduced fast. New airports have been opened. Closed airports have been re-opened. New airports are being currently built. Turkish CAA is signing and re-signing agreements with the other countries'CAAs to open routes and opportunities. All these factors made THY to become more competitive and follow the other leading airliners in the world. Turkish passengers now fly in and out Turkey in great numbers and more and more international passengers are using THY. Of course there are hiccups and issues etc with this grow, but I think they will learn & correct and continue to grow.

[regi]

First of all: Turkey has a large expat community. 3 million in Germany alone !
The days are gone that Turkish families did the yearly pilgrimage with old Ford Transit vans filled up to the roof and above with second hand stuff , from Germany to Turkey.
Now they fly. Some first generation Turks went back to their homeland . But the children visit them regularly.
The Turkish people have now more money to travel.
The economy grew , attracting business people. And sending Turkish entrepreneurs abroad for customer visits, trade fairs,...
But Turkey is also on the East-West connection. So it is a good hub.

Turkish Airlines is seen by Turkish expatriates as a better quality product than the cheap charter companies ( of which each year there is a scandal of one going bust ). But they are more expensive.

I have been a happy customer of Turkish Airlines. But I had a very unpleasant surprise when a 5 month old ( pre paid !) booking in a cheap economy class was suddenly cancelled and I had to pay 300 euro more to sit in the same economy seat of a higher booking class. Just like that. I refused to join this game and my travel agent rebooked me on another airline. This travel agent refused to do bookings for Turkish Airlines afterwards because of their reputation.
But again, my flights were splendid, on time, good food, clean, friendly,...
when I flew.

[hakan]

THY is increasing its current 14 time a week frequency of Istanbul Ataturk-Hamburg flights to 17 times a week from 1.May.2010.

[hakan]

According to local media here, Australian and Turkish CCAs have signed an agreement on 28.January.2010 allowing THY to fly 5 times a week to Australia, no more than 3 times a week to a single destination (i.e THY can't fly to Sydney 5 times a week).

THY's Sydney office has stated they are planning to fly to Australia next year, but declined giving any specific date, destination, aircraft type etc to the media.

Note: (Australia is the only country for THY that they have an office,but no actual THY flights. The office is active since 1987.It is estimated that they are more than 150,000 Australian Turks living in Australia.)

[regi]

According to local media here, Australian and Turkish CCAs have signed an agreement on 28.January.2010 allowing THY to fly 5 times a week to Australia, no more than 3 times a week to a single destination (i.e THY can't fly to Sydney 5 times a week).

THY's Sydney office has stated they are planning to fly to Australia next year, but declined giving any specific date, destination, aircraft type etc to the media.

Note: (Australia is the only country for THY that they have an office,but no actual THY flights. The office is active since 1987.It is estimated that they are more than 150,000 Australian Turks living in Australia.)

I think this will hurt Emirates a bit.
Especially for Brittish going down under it could be a better alternative ( travelling time ) . But also for Germans .

[hakan]

It has been announced that THY will dry lease three Jet Airways B777-300ERs for two years. The aircraft will join the THY's fleet in April. The company has placed firm order for twelve B777-300ER and will take deliveries of 5 this year and the rest in 2011.

[hakan]

According to some media reports THY is increasing its thrice a day Istanbul Ataturk-London Heathrow flights to 4 times a day from 28.March.2010

[BrightCedars]

According to local media here, Australian and Turkish CCAs have signed an agreement on 28.January.2010 allowing THY to fly 5 times a week to Australia, no more than 3 times a week to a single destination (i.e THY can't fly to Sydney 5 times a week).

THY's Sydney office has stated they are planning to fly to Australia next year, but declined giving any specific date, destination, aircraft type etc to the media.

Note: (Australia is the only country for THY that they have an office,but no actual THY flights. The office is active since 1987.It is estimated that they are more than 150,000 Australian Turks living in Australia.)

I think this will hurt Emirates a bit.
Especially for Brittish going down under it could be a better alternative ( travelling time ) . But also for Germans .

I don't agree. At over 9,000 miles IST-SYD nonstop won't be in the cards and so a ...-IST-BKK/SIN/etc-SYD will not rival EK, it might just take away some tight budget pax that would go thru the discomfort of a longer time 2-stop service if TK make it cheaper, which will make it unprofitable for them in return.

Didn't TK ever fly to Australia before? I remember at one point in time OA and MS did so, what about TK?

[hakan]

BrightCedars,

THY did only 2 charter flights during my time in Sydney. As far as I know they did never fly scheduled. What I heard here in the community that some flights will be via Jakarta and some via Bangkok. But they are rumors at this stage.

[hakan]

*Turkish and The Philippines CAAs have signed an agreement on 26.February.2010 in Ankara to allow multiple airliners from each countries to fly to each other. I understand this will allow THY to fly to Manila, Philippines 3 times a week. Some time ago, THY told to the media that Manila is one of their future destinations planned. At this stage, THY has not indicated the start up date, but I heard they will start once the ordered long haul aircraft delivered one by one....

*Meanwhile, THY has become a sponsor for the Greek basketball team Maroussi.

* THY also organised a special advertisement on the heighest building in Bangkok. Baiyoke Tower has been wrapped with THY's advertisement for 6 months.

See the link for the picture:

http://www.thy.com/tr-TR/corporate/news ... x?aid=4501

*THY has also placed a firm order with CAE for a CAE 7000 series Boeing 777-300ER full flight simulator

*THY's low cost arm Anadolu Jet is starting twice a week Ankara- Damascus flights tomorrow.