TK787 wrote:

5 months in advance and 44 of the 49 seats available in Business Class on my flight, TK only lets you see upgradable seats after you buy a ticket.
I am disappointed, Travel Agent doesn't care, TK call center apologetic
I do not think this is the same way with some other airlines, correct me if I am wrong please.
TK should be honest and say "no upgrades during summer/busy months", "blackout days"... anything....other than,
"purchase an economy ticket first and we'll see if you can upgrade"

I feel that TK has over the past year or so become way more aggressive in revenue management. They are likely seeing sufficient revenue demand for those 44 out of 49 available seats and therefore make no seats available in the booking class you need. There are a good number of route where even the lower range revenue business class buckets are impossible to get. On JNB CPT, for instance, TK often does not even make any J and K capacity available for sale in many markets, forcing passengers to buy up to Z, D or C buckets.

I am not really up to speed with how the TK upgrade system works. Does your upgrade capacity come from the J, I or R bucket?

HB-IWC wrote:

Does your upgrade capacity come from the J, I or R bucket?

I am not 100% sure but, Elite Plus annual 2 free upgrade is "I", and mileage upgrade is "J", not sure about "R"
I totally understand TK being greedy. I do not like "not being honest".
I will be totally happy if TK told me, no upgrades until 2 weeks out, or summer months are blackout months, or doubling the miles needed to upgrade.
I do not appreciate "you have to buy a ticket before I tell you if you can upgrade"

Again, I am not asking for a handout or a favor or anything free.

I am paying $1150 for an Economy fare and using 90,000 of my hard earned miles for roundtrip upgrade.
For comparison, there are few one-stop options to fly IST-JFK roundtrip $2300 Business Class on my travel dates

That is the beauty of booking in the US. Free cancelation after 24hrs! I just book my ticket, call THY and then cancel if they cant upgrade that ticket.

airanatolia wrote:

That is the beauty of booking in the US. Free cancelation after 24hrs! I just book my ticket, call THY and then cancel if they cant upgrade that ticket.

Thanks, never done that. But yes, good idea for next time

TK787 wrote:

HB-IWC wrote:

Does your upgrade capacity come from the J, I or R bucket?

I am not 100% sure but, Elite Plus annual 2 free upgrade is "I", and mileage upgrade is "J", not sure about "R"
I totally understand TK being greedy. I do not like "not being honest".
I will be totally happy if TK told me, no upgrades until 2 weeks out, or summer months are blackout months, or doubling the miles needed to upgrade.
I do not appreciate "you have to buy a ticket before I tell you if you can upgrade"

Again, I am not asking for a handout or a favor or anything free.

I am paying $1150 for an Economy fare and using 90,000 of my hard earned miles for roundtrip upgrade.
For comparison, there are few one-stop options to fly IST-JFK roundtrip $2300 Business Class on my travel dates

I checked just for reference the week of 12-18 June and TK has nothing available out of JFK or EWR in J, I or R for any of the flights TK004/TK002/TK012/TK030. They are all wide open in K and up, so you are probably facing a revenue management issue.

I think TK is enjoying the extra demand coming through Russians and Ukrainians that either have fled their country, or use IST to connect to the world. The demand and the disruption that the war has created is huge.

Miles&Smiles has already become a joke. No benefits at all, only burdens. As an EP, probably I'll no more try to keep my loyalty in M&S. I decided to burn my 100K miles as of 2022 end. I'll no more push for collecting miles, since you can not use them anyway.

TK105 wrote:

Miles&Smiles has already become a joke. No benefits at all, only burdens. As an EP, probably I'll no more try to keep my loyalty in M&S. I decided to burn my 100K miles as of 2022 end. I'll no more push for collecting miles, since you can not use them anyway.

It is the case with most airline loyalty programs I think. It is not crazy to see 400,000 miles to fly roundtrip Businss on some US legacies for long haul flights.
Just need to do a lot of research to find some reasonable fares.
I recently found and booked;
-$250 + 15,000miles to fly one way Business Class from Spain to Turkey on TK.
-17,000 miles to fly from NYC to San Juan, Puerto Rico one way on Jetblue Y.
-18,000 miles to fly from Florida to NYC one way on United Y.

We are supposedly in the off peak season but TK's 77W operation has again be a mess since a week or two. Yesterdays TK017 YYZ was 5 hours late, overnight both TK024 TPE and TK090 ICN were 5-6 hours late and right now TK001 JFK and TK017 YYZ are again several hours behind schedule. Undoubtedly the overnight departure will have some mega delays as well.

I don't understand why this keeps happening. It's just willful overscheduling of the fleet, not all that different from the phantom flights in the US we are reading about. TK is just preprogramming to delay passengers, without telling them.

Pegasus
The 26th A321neo was delivered
• TC–RDD Airbus A321–251NX msn 11166 „Avşin“ ex D–AZXO

4 new A350 msn for Turkish Airlines according to this link ATDB.
https://a380.boards.net/thread/1096/a350-msns?page=12

msn 644 ---------------- 2023
msn 659 ---------------- 2023
msn 667 ---------------- 2024
msn 669 ---------------- 2025

Don't know how accurate delivery dates are but if we went by this TK will be taking LN's 596, 618, 621, 638, 644, 651, 659 and the two ex SU 554, 558 for a total of nine this year.

TK773ER wrote:

4 new A350 msn for Turkish Airlines according to this link ATDB.
https://a380.boards.net/thread/1096/a350-msns?page=12

msn 644 ---------------- 2023
msn 659 ---------------- 2023
msn 667 ---------------- 2024
msn 669 ---------------- 2025

Don't know how accurate delivery dates are but if we went by this TK will be taking LN's 596, 618, 621, 638, 644, 651, 659 and the two ex SU 554, 558 for a total of nine this year.

If TK is planning to add nine frames during this, then at the very least they have not yet started planning where to deploy them. I am assuming that the S23 schedule must be more or less final right now, seeing as it is bound to start in just 2 months, and even after the gradual frequency reinforcements, the schedule does not come close to accounting for the 11 active + 9 additional A359 frames. Here is what is planned for S23:

7w ORD
3w YUL
3w YVR
11w GRU (7 extending to EZE)
7w JNB (some extending to DUR and MPM)
7w CPT
7w SIN
10w MNL (3 extending to CEB)
4w SGN

This can be flown with 12 or 13 aircraft at utilization rates of around 14 hours. TK tends to go higher than that but we need to account for a number of 3-4 hour regional rotations thrown in between the longhaul components. Still, nowhere near 20 aircraft are needed to fly this schedule.

I would expect that additional China flying will remove 77W capacity from certain routes that will need to be backfilled, but otherwise there seems to be room left for one or two new routes or additional frequencies to existing destinations.

Well, two or three 777ERs will go to Indigo.

HB-IWC wrote:

TK773ER wrote:

4 new A350 msn for Turkish Airlines according to this link ATDB.
https://a380.boards.net/thread/1096/a350-msns?page=12

msn 644 ---------------- 2023
msn 659 ---------------- 2023
msn 667 ---------------- 2024
msn 669 ---------------- 2025

Don't know how accurate delivery dates are but if we went by this TK will be taking LN's 596, 618, 621, 638, 644, 651, 659 and the two ex SU 554, 558 for a total of nine this year.

If TK is planning to add nine frames during this, then at the very least they have not yet started planning where to deploy them. I am assuming that the S23 schedule must be more or less final right now, seeing as it is bound to start in just 2 months, and even after the gradual frequency reinforcements, the schedule does not come close to accounting for the 11 active + 9 additional A359 frames. Here is what is planned for S23:

7w ORD
3w YUL
3w YVR
11w GRU (7 extending to EZE)
7w JNB (some extending to DUR and MPM)
7w CPT
7w SIN
10w MNL (3 extending to CEB)
4w SGN

This can be flown with 12 or 13 aircraft at utilization rates of around 14 hours. TK tends to go higher than that but we need to account for a number of 3-4 hour regional rotations thrown in between the longhaul components. Still, nowhere near 20 aircraft are needed to fly this schedule.

I would expect that additional China flying will remove 77W capacity from certain routes that will need to be backfilled, but otherwise there seems to be room left for one or two new routes or additional frequencies to existing destinations.

Turkish777X wrote:

Well, two or three 777ERs will go to Indigo.

As I understood, they will come from different sources, not from TK stock. I may be wrong.

No, will be TK 777s.

Either ex Kenya 777 or their own metal. I guess tks own metal.

HB-IWC wrote:

Turkish777X wrote:

Well, two or three 777ERs will go to Indigo.

As I understood, they will come from different sources, not from TK stock. I may be wrong.

Interesting is also that TK leases a plane to Indigo as there is demand. But TK is not leasing a small fleet of 380s .

I am not questioning the rationale behind it. Just find it odd. I mean introduction of new type etc is difficult and expensive. Also deploying them year round to US and EU routes after indian hops is not simple. I mean the 380 is a dying horse. Nobody would bet on a dying horse imI guess so late in tue lifecycle of this plane. Still interesting…

HB-IWC wrote:

Turkish777X wrote:

Well, two or three 777ERs will go to Indigo.

As I understood, they will come from different sources, not from TK stock. I may be wrong.

HB–IWC That's right, according to earlier statements by the TK management, there will be 3 extra 777s that will be used in the first quarter.

Turkish777X wrote:

Interesting is also that TK leases a plane to Indigo as there is demand. But TK is not leasing a small fleet of 380s .

I am not questioning the rationale behind it. Just find it odd. I mean introduction of new type etc is difficult and expensive. Also deploying them year round to US and EU routes after indian hops is not simple. I mean the 380 is a dying horse. Nobody would bet on a dying horse imI guess so late in tue lifecycle of this plane. Still interesting…

quite right but unfortunately, the A380 at TK will always be a dream

Has a new date been set for Cukurova airport to open ?
If it was to open by April 2023, I would be expecting to be seeing publicity images of a near-complete airport and be reading about test flights by now

Turkish777X wrote:

No, will be TK 777s.

Either ex Kenya 777 or their own metal. I guess tks own metal.

HB-IWC wrote:

Turkish777X wrote:

Well, two or three 777ERs will go to Indigo.

As I understood, they will come from different sources, not from TK stock. I may be wrong.

Nope, TK will source them and then lease them to Indigo.

TK773ER wrote:

4 new A350 msn for Turkish Airlines according to this link ATDB.
https://a380.boards.net/thread/1096/a350-msns?page=12

msn 644 ---------------- 2023
msn 659 ---------------- 2023
msn 667 ---------------- 2024
msn 669 ---------------- 2025

Don't know how accurate delivery dates are but if we went by this TK will be taking LN's 596, 618, 621, 638, 644, 651, 659 and the two ex SU 554, 558 for a total of nine this year.

Does it mean new a/c for TK or is it only allocation of MSNs to TKs original order?

davidjohnson6 wrote:

Has a new date been set for Cukurova airport to open ?
If it was to open by April 2023, I would be expecting to be seeing publicity images of a near-complete airport and be reading about test flights by now

There might be a "political show opening" (even hardly to be describes as a soft opening) by the end of April 2023, but the airport cannot be made fully operational before the end of Aug./Sept. 2023.

The PBBs have jut been delivered to the constructioon site.

TKflyer wrote:

HB-IWC wrote:

Turkish777X wrote:

Well, two or three 777ERs will go to Indigo.

As I understood, they will come from different sources, not from TK stock. I may be wrong.

HB–IWC That's right, according to earlier statements by the TK management, there will be 3 extra 777s that will be used in the first quarter.

Well, flights start on Feb 1. Where are the extra three frames then?

You can dummy book a seat on indigos website. It shows 28 J and 372Y seats. This is exactly ex Kenya configuration TK has in its own fleet (LKA, LKB, LKC). I am pretty sure TK will give their own metal to Indigo.

First TK owned TC LKA 777ER now on ferry flight to India. Airporthaber also confirmed the news.

Not sure if mentioned before Turkish Airlines to increase the number of flights to Venezuela to 10, including 7 direct flights and 3 flights via Havana.
https://move2turkey.com/turkish-talks-w ... -services/

TK773ER wrote:

Not sure if mentioned before Turkish Airlines to increase the number of flights to Venezuela to 10, including 7 direct flights and 3 flights via Havana.
https://move2turkey.com/turkish-talks-w ... -services/

That is new information and not yet loaded in the reservation systems. So far only an increase for Sao Paulo from 7 to 11 weekly has been announced and loaded.

TK787 wrote:

HB-IWC wrote:

Does your upgrade capacity come from the J, I or R bucket?

I am not 100% sure but, Elite Plus annual 2 free upgrade is "I", and mileage upgrade is "J", not sure about "R"
I totally understand TK being greedy. I do not like "not being honest".
I will be totally happy if TK told me, no upgrades until 2 weeks out, or summer months are blackout months, or doubling the miles needed to upgrade.
I do not appreciate "you have to buy a ticket before I tell you if you can upgrade"

Again, I am not asking for a handout or a favor or anything free.

I am paying $1150 for an Economy fare and using 90,000 of my hard earned miles for roundtrip upgrade.
For comparison, there are few one-stop options to fly IST-JFK roundtrip $2300 Business Class on my travel dates

I had a high economy fare a few weeks ago on IST-ORD and they offered me an upgrade for US $1100 at check-in (one way). 90k miles seems like a decent value for a roundtrip.

Please continue here: Turkish Aviation February 2023
Moderators, please archive this thread. Thank you. TK787