Turkish Airlines Launches Melbourne-Istanbul Flights via Singapore

I am sure that there was talk about such flights about 4 years ago. Actually looking on-line I see that it was actually in 2015 according to Executive Traveller. TK denied the rumours but I am sure this wasn't the only place that the story was covered.

In regards to those "migrant traffic flights" they were definitely going up to the mid/late 1970's. JAT (Yugoslavia) used to fly to Melbourne via Perth. They used old TWA/AA B707's - you could see the old livery through the thin respray. We used to dread them in Customs as they were consistently delayed thus throwing out shift workloads. Plus almost every male passenger would bring back about 10 L of homemade grappa in plastic bottles causing much fun when you were acting as the duty collector.

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TK flies to all continents except Australia and the special one south of us.

It's a lengthy trip nonstop from IST to PER and a bit further to MEL, and even longer to SYD and BNE IIRC. The last two may possibly be out of range unless TK heavily limited passengers and freight one way, which might make flights uneconomic.

But TK is a large airline. Its flights to Asian cities like BKK and MNL are popular, and can be very good value in J. It had a good reputation pre-pandemic for food in the air, and has up to date aircraft like A359s offering 1-2-1 in J, though not closed suites like QR.

Can anyone see TK running a fifth freedom flight from an Asian city to either PER or MEL, or alternatively operating nonstop from IST to those two, or is this a pipedream? I'm assuming geopolitical conditions eventually normalise, encouraging travel, or at least aren't as threatening as in March 2022.

55 years ago there was European migrant traffic to Oz with airlines like Alitalia and Olympic Airways serving Australia. That's long ceased, and other European airlines such as the LH plus subsidiaries monolith have shied away, perceiving the 'last leg' to/from Oz would be unprofitable. BA has persisted but it's no longer in Europe post-Brexit.

TK would use the new IST airport (reportedly excellent - am hoping to visit, as have been to the old one that was 'dated') and I daresay attract a lot of connecting traffic, as it has frequent flights to airports such as LHR, CDG, FRA, MAD, VIE and ZUR plus others. The lounges are apparently top class.

IST is also a major city on the border of Europe and Asia well worth a visit in its own right that I for one found very interesting, so lots of us might be interested in a stopover on the way to LHR/CDG/FRA and so on.

Yes, Turkey is, or was, a great place to visit, which we first did in 1996. They were then a very open and welcoming people in those days. The then story was that if the Government of the day tried to bring in fundamentalist rules, the Army would step in and dismiss them. Have visited 3 times in all over the years, not sure about going again with the current leader though.

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Yes Turkey, is or perhaps was, a great place tovovst

Yes, Turkey is, or was, a great place to visit, which we first did in 1996. They were then a very open and welcoming people in those days. The then story was that if the Government of the day tried to bring in fundamentalist rules, the Army would step in and dismiss them. Have visited 3 times in all over the years, not sure about going again with the current leader though.

He's a despot, and IIRC Oz has had a diplomatic spat with Turkey in the last two years, but do he (ort Turks generally) adversely affect or threaten Australian tourists?

Or are you referring to morality in whether we 'support' the regime by visiting, always a conundrum?

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Yes but the ability to get technical crew, particularly competent or experienced pilots to furnish that huge network always worried me when flying with them. I think @jb747 once opined similarly.

The vast majority of large passenger airlines are safe. We are at more risk travelling by car, or scampering across a multi-lane road on foot.

The Airline Ratings site headquartered in Perth WA gives TK 5/7 as it has had incidents during the past decade.

To be fair, it's a far larger airline than QFd + QFi and flies to a much greater variety of destinations, presumably including a higher number that are challenging whether in climate or airfield. So while we all respect our aviators' or former aviators' knowledge, a small number of incidents in a decade (statistically only a tiny percentage of flights) wouldn't deter me. Some may see this as foolhardy: they're entitled to their opinion.

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To be fair, it's a far larger airline than QFd + QFi and flies to a much greater variety of destinations, presumably including a higher number that are challenging whether in climate or airfield. So while we all respect our aviators' or former aviators' knowledge, a small number of incidents in a decade (statistically only a tiny percentage of flights) wouldn't deter me. Some may see this as foolhardy: they're entitled to their opinion.

Sure, it didn't deter me either - international and domestic Turkey but still, a huge expansion in such a small period made me wonder ... 🙂 ( Mind you I thought the same about US carriers in respect of experience/ how much the people up front were being paid). Still flew them, too.

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