Star Alliance member Turkish Airlines recently unveiled the newest addition to its fleet, a beautiful Airbus A350-900. Similar to their new Boeing 787-9 last summer, which made its maiden flights from Istanbul to Amsterdam before beginning long haul rotations, Turkish Airlines plans to deploy its newest airplane on flights to Europe first.
As Google Flights, as well as the Airfare Matrix, suggests, the aircraft will operate a daily rotation as TK1985/1986 between Istanbul and London-Heathrow. The earliest date that the Airbus A350-900 is advertised as operating these flights is April 13, 2020.
The flights in questions are:
- TK 1985 Istanbul 13:00 – London LHR 15:45
- TK 1986 London LHR 16:30 – Istanbul 22:20
Currently, a roundtrip from London on this very plane starts at €1,800 in business, €710 in economy class on its first rotation. This doesn’t get much better when using miles – a business class oneway from London to Istanbul comes with the price tag of 30,000 miles. Oneway tickets for the first flight from Istanbul are available at €192 in economy and at €846 in business.
Just a week later, a roundtrip from London is available at €309 in economy, with both legs on Turkish’s shiny new toy. However, a night in Istanbul is necessary to make this trip. We have no information on how long Turkish Airlines will serve the route using A350s, but Google Flights indicates it may be as long as August 31.
After receiving backlash for their new Boeing 787 business class cabin, experts expect TK to introduce a new premium product – or at least add some tweaks to the old one. The seat maps of both planes appear to be identical. First long haul destinations seem to be Manila (beginning June 9th) & Buenos Aires via São Paulo (beginning July 13th).
Cover Picture: © Turkish Airlines