Turkish Airlines is on the cusp of a huge 600 aircraft order, with the first part of the deal set to be announced at the forthcoming IATA AGM in Istanbul. Professor Doctor Ahmed Bolat, Chairman of the Board of Turkish Airlines, indicated talks on the deal were progressing well and gave further detail at the airline’s new menu reveal event today.

Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the event, Bolat said,

“For the last 20 years Turkish Airlines has grown 12% on average. For the next 10 years, we are intending to grow to 7.6% and to reach 813 aircraft in 2033 ... During the IATA event, we're going to announce all this with one of the big manufacturers. We have almost finished discussions with them. So we are going to order around 600 aircraft, around 200 will be widebody and 400 narrowbody.”

The Chairman further noted that the growth in fleet size would allow the airline to reach its target of carrying 170 million passengers in 10 years' time.

Turkish Airlines aircraft tails
Photo: MikeDotta | Shutterstock

Mixing manufacturers

While Bolat didn’t want to give too much away in regards to aircraft type or manufacturer, he hinted that both Boeing and Airbus would be involved in the deals. He added,

“We are very close with one company, and we don’t want to delay that. There is an air show coming as well and for the other company we can announce that then.”

At present, Turkish Airlines has a very mixed fleet, with large numbers of Boeing and Airbus aircraft, both widebody and narrowbody. Looking at the new technology aircraft in the fleet, the airline has both A320neo family jets and 737 MAX, and on the widebody side, it flies the A350-900 and the 787-9. It does have older A330s and Boeing 777s also.

With large numbers of aircraft required for the future fleet, the airline could well maintain the mixed stable, topping up the supply of both Dreamliners and Airbus widebodies at one end, with neos and MAX at the other.

turkish airlines A321neo
Photo: Karasev Viktor / Shutterstock

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The right aircraft for Australia

Turkish wants to go down under, and soon. In fact, Bolat indicated that either Melbourne or Sydney could be launched as soon as this year. Out of the two, Melbourne is the front runner, owing to the lack of curfew on night flights and large Turkish diaspora in the city.

But the current aircraft will not make that trip, not in one go at least. Bolat indicated that, in the short term, the route would be operated with a stopover, probably in Singapore. Something with more legs would be required to make this flight nonstop, and that puts two aircraft in contention.

“An XWB A350 or a 777X, the -8, is the right aircraft for this. But, as you know, they are not going to be available … Turkish Airlines doesn’t want to be launch customers; we don’t want to have the risk. This is something we’ve really benefited from for the last 20 years – we have avoided aircraft which are not mature.”

Without saying it, Bolat has pretty much ruled out the 777X as a potential aircraft for the fleet, given it’s not yet available and will not be considered ‘mature’ for some time to come. Clearly, for the Australia route at least, the airline is keenly considering the A350-1000, the very same jet Qantas has picked for its Project Sunrise ultra-long-haul flights. To make the A350 go the distance, Airbus needs to tweak its range; if that works out, the European planemaker could well find itself with another customer.

A Qantas Airbus A350-1000 parked on an airport apron.
Photo: Airbus

That doesn’t mean Boeing is going to lose out, however. The Dreamliner’s incredible fuel efficiency makes it a super asset for Turkish, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see something to top up that fleet also. With the details for both sides of the order set to be announced net month, we won’t have to wait too long to see how it shakes out.