Will TK (Turkish Airlines) ever fly to PER, MEL or elsewhere in Oz?

[Melburnian1]

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.

 

[AIRwin]

Not TK but even PK is launching weekly flights between LHE and SYD next month...

 

[OZDUCK]

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.

Review: what it’s like to fly Turkish Airlines business class

The long-awaited arrival of Turkish Airlines brings fresh five-star style to the skies…

www.executivetraveller.com

 

[jase05]

They have arguably the best network going and their product has always been good to exceptional from our experiences. Would love them to come here one day.

 

[Melburnian1]

They have arguably the best network going and their product has always been good to exceptional from our experiences. Would love them to come here one day.

Some videos suggested that from c. March 2020, the food experience on board deteriorated but this appears to have pretty much returned to normal, except it may be encasing all food (even in J) in plastic wrap.

Its fares from BKK and MNL (the latter especially) in J to Europe/UK seem be very good value. The sole person I know who's travelled on TK long haul (pre-COVID) said the experience was excellent.

 

[Franky]

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.

 

[Melburnian1]

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?

 

[RooFlyer]

They have arguably the best network going and their product has always been good to exceptional from our experiences. Would love them to come here one day.

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. Would love them to come to Australia but in the current environment I can’t see it happening.

The new(-ish) IST lounges were/are amazing, though. Would love to go back.

 

[Melburnian1]

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.

 

[Must...Fly!]

I'm not sure they'd necessarily have the financial capability to do it, it's a big commitment and the Turkish Lira is (due to self inflicted stupidity) increasingly struggling in foreign currency markets and inflation in Turkey is estimated at ~50% per annum. It's fair to assume the market would be Australian tourists going to Europe or north Africa, and European tourists to Australia. Not that many of either right now, or for the foreseeable...

It would have to be Sydney to be worth doing at all, they are in Star Alliance and there are plenty of Star carriers operating in to Sydney already. Including SQ under a codeshare with TK.

 

[RooFlyer]

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.

 

[Daver6]

It would have to be Sydney to be worth doing at all, they are in Star Alliance and there are plenty of Star carriers operating in to Sydney already. Including SQ under a codeshare with TK.

I would have thought it makes little sense for TK to fly into Australia. Fly to SIN and then offload pax onto SQ which has (during normal times) multiple daily flights into major Australian cities.

 

[Franky]

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?

I'm not aware that Australian or other foreign tourists have been in any danger, nor does the morality part of it bother me. We last visited in 2010, so hopefully things havent changed much. Having been there 3 times, we did Istanbul and the Western coast as far South as Antalya a number of times, which included Izmir, Epheus and of course the battlefields. I believed then that most of the rest of the country was less Westernised. The current leader seems to put his foot into things rather easily, and seems to be at odds with a number of other countries. Either way, we have other places to visit now, but we always look back to our visits there and enjoyed every part of our trips.

 

[RooFlyer]

I would have thought it makes little sense for TK to fly into Australia. Fly to SIN and then offload pax onto SQ which has (during normal times) multiple daily flights into major Australian cities.

.... Which of course is what Finnair does or used to do in OW - fly into Asian ports and pax connect up with Qantas to get to Oz.

 

[Must...Fly!]

There is only one European airline left flying in to Australia and there is a reason for that...

 

[dajop]

I would have thought it makes little sense for TK to fly into Australia. Fly to SIN and then offload pax onto SQ which has (during normal times) multiple daily flights into major Australian cities.

Presumably if they did fly nonstop to Australia it wouldn’t be just about Turkey bound traffic, but instead to compete on the basis of offering a much bigger range of single-stop destinations than any other carrier (without backtracking). Basically in the realm of the ME3. Something that they can’t really do if offloading pax onto SQ at SIN.

PER-IST is about the same distance as SYD-DXB so is not mega-ULH, but is the market there? East Coast would have much more difficult economics, MEL-IST is about the same as PER-LHR.

 

[Daver6]

Presumably if they did fly nonstop to Australia it wouldn’t be just about Turkey bound traffic, but instead to compete on the basis of offering a much bigger range of single-stop destinations than any other carrier (without backtracking). Basically in the realm of the ME3. Something that they can’t really do if offloading pax onto SQ at SIN.

PER-IST is about the same distance as SYD-DXB so is not mega-ULH, but is the market there? East Coast would have much more difficult economics, MEL-IST is about the same as PER-LHR.

Agree. They'd really need to do what the ME3 or even SQ do. Service major Australian cities daily with a hub and spoke model. The question is, is there sufficient demand for another option or will they be able to compete on price/service against the incumbents?

I don't think just servicing one Australian port will cut it. That then just becomes a niche route IMHO.

 

[jase05]

Presumably if they did fly nonstop to Australia it wouldn’t be just about Turkey bound traffic, but instead to compete on the basis of offering a much bigger range of single-stop destinations than any other carrier (without backtracking). Basically in the realm of the ME3. Something that they can’t really do if offloading pax onto SQ at SIN.

PER-IST is about the same distance as SYD-DXB so is not mega-ULH, but is the market there? East Coast would have much more difficult economics, MEL-IST is about the same as PER-LHR.

Yeah, definitely food for thought but TK does service more countries than any other airline so a 1 stop flight from AU to IST opens up a pretty impressive network and at the right price and from at least 2 AU ports it would be a interesting proposition

 

[frodo]

Even if they fly to AU, one issue to consider is that the IST - Europe leg will likely be on a narrowbody or a short-haul configured aircraft.

This is a deal breaker for me unless prices are extremely good to make up for this or I want a stopover in Turkey. Whether the general population will care is another story.

 

[jase05]

Even if they fly to AU, one issue to consider is that the IST - Europe leg will likely be on a narrowbody or a short-haul configured aircraft.

This is a deal breaker for me unless prices are extremely good to make up for this or I want a stopover in Turkey.

Definitely a consideration