Turkish Airlines

Turkish Airlines has officially announced that they will be launching new daily nonstop flights to Los Angeles (LAX) and Washington DC (IAD) from December 2010 onwards which shall be code shared with their Star Alliance partner i.e. United Airlines. Services to IAD will be flown using a new Airbus A 330-200 where as operations to LAX will be flown using their brand new factory fresh Boeing 777-300ER which will have the worlds largest business class seat. The flight schedule of these routes is expected to be as follows:

IAD - daily A 332 (250 seats...22J / 228Y)

TK XXX Dep IST 1100 Arr IAD 1450
TK XXX Dep IAD 2315 Arr IST 1700+1

LAX - daily B 773ER (310 seats...8F / 34J / 268Y)

TK XXX Dep IST 1045 Arr LAX 1445
TK XXX Dep LAX 1800 Arr IST 1720+1

The above mentioned schedule allows for excellent connections vis IST in both directions to all of TK's Levant, African, Central Asian, Middle East and Indian subcontinent (BOM/DEL/KHI) destinations. TK also officially confirmed that from Dec 2010, it shall also be increasing frequencies on its flagship route to New York-JFK to a double daily nonstop operation using their new Boeing 777-300ERs for both flights. The second daily departure will depart JFK at 1130pm where as the current one departs at 445pm NYC time.

Comments:

IAD was expected to be launched by TK since 2006 but always there was some sort of hindrance that prevented the route from being inaugurated. LAX will be an interesting route to see how TK performs from a yield point of view in particular as its an ultra long haul route with tons of competition and high operating costs. The airline that one feels that would be most impacted negatively with TK entering are EK and QR at LAX and IAD respectively.

The main reason for this is due to TK's ability to undercut EK's fares in all cabin classes from LAX to the Middle East and Africa in particular. Out of IAD, TK should see good J class loads bound to AMM/BEY/CAI/DAM/IST/TAS/ALA/ADD/SIN/KRT/GYD/JED/RUH in particular as the connections on offer to these capital cities from/to IAD via IST in both directions are excellent. From IAD, they shall be a huge threat to QR's market share to DEL/BOM/KHI/DXB/AUH in particular.