Why Turkish Airlines Is Planning Service to Sydney

Turkish Airlines continues to push boundaries when it comes to expanding its destination network. According to a recently released factsheet, the carrier flies to 349 destinations in 130 countries and thus claims the title for the largest international flight network in the world.

Entering the Australian Market

Despite its vast network, Turkish Airlines has yet to connect its customers to all six inhabited continents. However, that’s about to change. The airline is expanding its fleet with new aircraft orders, including the Airbus A350-900 and A350-1000, which promise to extend its global reach even farther.

Earlier this year, the airline took its first step into Australia by launching a one-stop flight to Melbourne via Singapore. This marks the beginning of its Australian operations.

The next major milestone is expected in December this year, with the airline launching more one-stop services, including Santiago de Chile via São Paulo and Sydney via Kuala Lumpur. The Airbus A350-900 variant will operate these new routes.

The most significant news, however, concerns Sydney. Turkish has announced plans to operate a non-stop route to the city once it takes delivery of the Airbus A350-1000 in 2026. This will make Turkish Airlines one of the few global carriers to serve all six continents with non-stop flights.

Turkish Airlines online and offline destinations network at the end of 2023 (Photo: Turkish Airlines 2023 Annual Report)

Joining the Elite Circle

Only a select few airlines worldwide serve destinations on all six continents, and even fewer operate non-stop flights to those locations.

Turkish Airlines’ closest competitors, the Gulf Three — Emirates, Etihad Airways, and Qatar Airways — have historically set high ambitions. While all three once flew to all six continents, only Emirates and Qatar Airways continue to do so today.

In Europe, British Airways is the most extensive in this regard. The historical connections of the British Empire allow the U.K.’s largest airline to offer a one-stop flight to Sydney via Singapore. No other European network carrier offers anything comparable, making it the closest to operating on all six continents with a non-stop service.

In the U.S., the Big Three — American, Delta, and United — benefit from multi-hub models that connect the East and West Coasts to different parts of the world. However, American currently does not serve any African destinations, making it the only one of the three not to achieve global coverage.

Ethiopian Airlines, while close, doesn’t connect all continents. In Asia, several carriers come close, but only Air China serves all six continents. Meanwhile, Australia’s Qantas fulfills its role as the nation’s flag carrier, connecting its isolated country to the world with at least one destination in each continent.

A High Stakes Race

If serving six continents wasn’t enough, there is another way to tell the carriers apart. It is by looking at ones serving the most distant points on Earth from a respective hub. As with the increased mileage, the costs of serving such routes grow exponentially, nowhere could this feat be as important as in the Middle East.

All three famous Gulf carriers are serving as a significant benchmark for Turkish Airlines. Still, all three of them currently serve routes longer than anything in the Turkish carrier’s network. To be able to profitably serve such routes is a sign of operational efficiency and a strong network; something that could say more than any industry award.

Longest routes operated by the Gulf Three and Turkish Airlines (Photo: Filip Kopec)

Coincidently, or not, the rumoured non-stop connection from Istambul to Sydney could change that. With a great circle distance of 14,967 km, the route would surpass everything the Gulf carriers have in their portfolios. It would only fall short of Singapore Airlines’ record-breaking Singapore to New York ultra-long-haul routes, operated by Airbus A350-900ULR aircraft.

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Filip Kopeć

A passionate aviation enthusiast that started off his career as an aerospace engineer, but found his true calling on the commercial side of the airline business. Now as a finance guy among avgeeks and an avgeek among finance guys, he has experience working in the Revenue Divisions of three airlines. In his spare time he enjoys traveling, but admittedly sometimes is more about the journey than the destination.

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