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Edited 16 Oct 2024: Turkish Airlines has now brought forward the planned launch to 28 November 2024 (was 4 December 2024).
Sydney Airport has confirmed that Turkish Airlines will launch a new service between Istanbul and New South Wales from this winter (northern hemisphere) to complement its existing route between Istanbul and Melbourne. What’s a little more interesting, however, is that this new route is expected to operate non-stop from 2026.
TK’s new route to Sydney
A little strangely, there’s been no Turkish Airlines press release announcing a new route and there isn’t any mention of a new route on the airline’s investor page either, but as the route to Sydney is already open for new bookings, it’s safe to assume that Sydney Airport hasn’t got things horribly wrong.
The new service between Istanbul and Sydney will launch on 28 November 2024 and to start off, it will route via Kuala Lumpur.
This is the currently planned schedule:
TK174 IST 15:15 – 06:20+1 day KUL 07:40+1 day – 18:30+1 day SYD
TK175 SYD 20:40 – 01:55+1 day KUL 03:55+1 day – 10:15+1 day IST
Outbound, flights will operate on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday, while inbound, they’ll operate on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday.
The route will be launched using A350-900 aircraft featuring 32 Business Class seats and 297 Economy Class seats.
These aren’t the aircraft the airline acquired thanks to the sanctions which prevented Aeroflot from taking delivery, so they don’t feature the Collins Aerospace Horizon seats (with privacy door) in Business Class. They do, however still offer a very good Business Class product from Stelia Aerospace – the Aurora seat.
This, however, won’t be the aircraft operating this route for years to come. Another aircraft is expected to take over in 2026.
Related: New Turkish Airlines Business Class seat
The route will go non-stop
Turkish Airlines is expecting to take delivery of several A350-1000 aircraft in 2026, and the airline plans to employ them on the Istanbul – Sydney route from late 2026 to allow it to avoid the layover in Kuala Lumpur.
Interestingly, what makes these aircraft able to fly ‘ultra long-haul’ isn’t an extra fuel tank or a low ratio of Business Class to Economy Class seats (that’s how Qantas will extend the range of its A350-1000s to allow them to fly non-stop between Sydney and London).
Instead, thanks to the newest Rolls Royce engines that now come as standard on the A350-1000, the aircraft is more than capable of flying the 9,300 miles between the two cities (the aircraft can now fly over 10,000 miles with a relatively standard load).
When delivered, the Turkish Airlines A350-1000s will feature the airline’s latest Business Class cabin (the Crystal Business Class suites) which you can see on this YouTube video:
What we don’t yet know, however, is what the airline plans to do for is Economy Class passengers on this aircraft as 17+ hours in a tight Economy Class seat doesn’t sound like something a lot of people are going to enjoy.
In what now seems like a lifetime ago, I spent 17+ hours on one of the first ever non-stop flights between Auckland and Doha (when that was the world’s longest commercial flight), and even though I was in Business Class, that was still more than long enough to be sealed up in a flying composite tube.
I can’t imagine wanting to do the same flight in one of the Economy Class seats that are now, sadly, the norm (i.e. ~31″ of pitch and no more than 17.5″ of width), so it will be interesting to see what the Turkish Airlines A350-1000 will offer.
Bottom line
Turkish Airlines will launch a new route between Istanbul and Sydney at the end of November 2024, and while this route will initially require a layover in Kuala Lumpur, the airline plans to make this a non-stop route from late 2026 once it has taken delivery of its first A350-1000 aircraft.
[HT: Business Traveller]
