DENVER — Turkish Airlines is targeting Minneapolis, Charlotte, Philadelphia and Orlando as future U.S. destinations, Turkish Airlines President Ahmet Bolat said in an interview in Denver on June 11. Turkish Airlines was the first to arrive in Denver that day.
The airline currently flies to Denver three times a week, up to four times a week on July 9. Denver is Türkiye's 14th U.S. route, all of which depart from Istanbul.
“The number of destinations in the U.S. will increase by up to 20,” Bolat said confidently. However, he stopped short of estimating the time frame for these developments or even for Turkey's next launch of a route to the United States. The president said the top priorities will be to get the Istanbul-Detroit service, which launched in November, to run daily instead of the current six times a week, as well as the Denver service to run daily.
Turkey, a Star Alliance member currently serving 347 destinations in 130 countries, has 75 Airbus A350 widebody aircraft on order and options for 15 more. Turkey is also considering ordering the Boeing 777x, depending on the ultimate performance of the yet-to-be-certified aircraft, Bolat said.
The order ties into Turkey's ambitions to double its production capacity over the next decade, increasing its fleet size from about 460 currently to about 810 (including its low-cost brand AJet).
Along with adding U.S. routes, the company plans to use additional widebodies to bolster capacity in Africa and increase frequency in its network, particularly in Asia, Bolat said. Higher flight frequencies will further strengthen the airline's position in the east-west link market, especially where it competes with Emirates and Qatar Airways.
Turkey, which is 49% state-owned, also plans to use its fleet build-up to add about 50 destinations to its already expanded route network, but the number of powerful options is dwindling, Bolat noted.
“How much more can you do?” he asked rhetorically.
Turkish Airlines Chairman Ahmet Bolat speaks at a gala celebrating Turkish Airlines' first flight to Denver. Photo courtesy of Robert Silk.
Turkish Airlines’ NDC Initiative
Joining the Turkish president in the interview room, the airline's Chief Commercial Officer Ahmet Olmustur spoke about plans to launch the NDC program on October 1. The platform, called TK Connect, is available to travel advisors through three options: Third parties through direct connections, web-based booking portals or aggregators. Olmustur said Amadeus, Saber and Travelport will be among the approved aggregators.
Turkey will implement additional fees for existing GDS bookings with the launch of the NDC program, but the amount has not yet been disclosed.
Olmustur said Turkish Airlines will remove some low-cost content from its existing GDS when it launches TK Connect.
“We will only have one or two classes down the line to differentiate our products from existing channels, so we will be able to give agencies a very smooth pass,” he said.
Conversely, travel advisors will benefit from the ability to sell ancillary products, including extra bags, seats with extra legroom, as well as other rich product offerings, he added.
Olmustur said agencies can expect the Turkish NDC platform to be free of the service issues that have plagued NDC launches by previous airline adopters. He said Turkish Airlines has learned from its struggles over the past few years and airlines will benefit by building their NDC interfaces using the latest IATA standards.
“We created the product to solve the problems of NDC,” Olmustur said.
