Turkish Airlines CEO, Mr. Bilal Eksi has said that the carrier is currently not interested in buying the A380, but the carrier might rethink about it once the new airport is inaugurated at the end of 2018.
Turkish Airlines is currently looking to buy 40 more jets and is considering the A350 and the B789, an announcement will be made before year end. Turkish will also buy up to 40 B737-900.

"In an interview with Arabian Business, Ekşi said that “as of today, we have no such need” but said that the airline will “evaluate the situation” following the opening of Istanbul’s third airport, which is currently under construction and is slated for inauguration in late October 2018."


Source: http://www.arabianbusiness.com/industri ... rlines-ceo

Will TK order and operate the A380? I don't think so..

Talk about a negotiating tactic. We don't need it, but we'll consider it... for the right price...

IMHO TK could make money with the A380, but at this point, the 779 makes more sense...

I sense negotiations...

Lightsaber

Name of the game and competitive advantage of TK is frequency not capacity
Business model is not suitable for VLA

And the TK business model doesn’t really allow for the A380, but rather for right-sizing plane to route. The future should rely on the B789, A333, and B77W as the wide body types.

Revelation wrote:

lightsaber wrote:

Talk about a negotiating tactic. We don't need it, but we'll consider it... for the right price...

IMHO TK could make money with the A380, but at this point, the 779 makes more sense...

I sense negotiations...

Lightsaber

You would think a newer/bigger airport would mean less need for A380 because airport slots/gates are easier to come by, unless they didn't build a big enough airport.

But as always any hope for A380 grabs our attention, as does 747.

You ignore the fact that airplanes operate on two ends so there can be a big and open airport on one end and a smaller and congested airport on the other end.

ist2014 wrote:

Name of the game and competitive advantage of TK is frequency not capacity
Business model is not suitable for VLA

EK has 10 flights a day to London and 5 flights a day to Bangkok, all on A380 so frequency and size often go together.

aemoreira1981 wrote:

And the TK business model doesn’t really allow for the A380, but rather for right-sizing plane to route. The future should rely on the B789, A333, and B77W as the wide body types.

I think if they are trying to be a Qatar/Emirates, I'm sure they could cope with 10-12 A380's.

This is basically saying we're interested. See what deal you can give us.

When was this interview? Have they not already selected the 789 over the A350?

dubaiamman243 wrote:

Turkish will also buy up to 40 B737-900.

I found this most remarkable. Why would anyone buy the 739 when the 73X is available?

Dutchy wrote:

dubaiamman243 wrote:

Turkish will also buy up to 40 B737-900.

I found this most remarkable. Why would anyone buy the 739 when the 73X is available?

Cheap cheap cheap. Milk the production line while it's still open.

Arion640 wrote:

Dutchy wrote:

dubaiamman243 wrote:

Turkish will also buy up to 40 B737-900.

I found this most remarkable. Why would anyone buy the 739 when the 73X is available?

Cheap cheap cheap. Milk the production line while it's still open.

are there still slots available for 737NG?

TK bread and butter profit is derived primarily from shorterhaul Europe, domestic, Mideast/CIS and some Africa.
Longhaul tends to be entirely a loss leader function with only handful of standalone profitable markets, yet critical for feed and network scale.

Last A380 analysis I was privy at TK showed the aircraft would only really be useful on two routes with the remainder of use subject to constant seasonal reallocation. The bottom line was there was not sufficient enough activity for an A380 fleet to be kept busy with while providing a consistent positive contribution.

Lastly as a point of fact, one should not confuse EK ability to use hordes of A380s as its business model is vastly different. At TK only 1/3 of passengers are Intl-Intl connections, which means 2/3 of clients are Turkey O&D. At EK this is more than reversed. As result EK has far thicker traffic connection passenger flows per bank at DXB.

Vladex wrote:

Revelation wrote:

lightsaber wrote:

Talk about a negotiating tactic. We don't need it, but we'll consider it... for the right price...

IMHO TK could make money with the A380, but at this point, the 779 makes more sense...

I sense negotiations...

Lightsaber

You would think a newer/bigger airport would mean less need for A380 because airport slots/gates are easier to come by, unless they didn't build a big enough airport.

But as always any hope for A380 grabs our attention, as does 747.

You ignore the fact that airplanes operate on two ends so there can be a big and open airport on one end and a smaller and congested airport on the other end.

ist2014 wrote:

Name of the game and competitive advantage of TK is frequency not capacity
Business model is not suitable for VLA

EK has 10 flights a day to London and 5 flights a day to Bangkok, all on A380 so frequency and size often go together.

You could hardly have drawn a less correct conclusion.
Upgauges and frequency increases both add seats. Doing both at once increases seats even more. Simultaneously adding and upgauging flights is only done in rapidly-growing markets, which (by subsidies and other factors) describes EK's rote network very well.
TK is not positioned for the rapid growth Emirates has displayed, so it is foolish to expect the same rapid growth MO. TK will upgauge or increase frequency, not both.

airbazar wrote:

That depends. Frequency and capacity are not mutually exclusive. If they were, the 779 (albeit smaller), would also be bad.
EK doesn't seem to have a problem operating multiple A380 frequencies. I think why it doesn't make sense for TK is the fact that their biggest market is Europe which is a lot of ways its short haul flying, and the fact that their bilateral with India is far too restrictive. If TK were to get the same deal from India that EK has, you can bet they would be ordering A380's.

Not only is the O&D between India and Turkey on the lower end, but like QR, they don't seem to have a good negotiator to play hardball at one point or another to get the rights they need. It also doesn't help that no Indian carrier flies to that country, and nobody has any plans to do so either.

Arion640 wrote:

Dutchy wrote:

dubaiamman243 wrote:

Turkish will also buy up to 40 B737-900.

I found this most remarkable. Why would anyone buy the 739 when the 73X is available?

Cheap cheap cheap. Milk the production line while it's still open.

Delivery slots has to be another huge factor, the 73X has a rather large backlog atm

JamesCousins wrote:

Arion640 wrote:

Dutchy wrote:

I found this most remarkable. Why would anyone buy the 739 when the 73X is available?

Cheap cheap cheap. Milk the production line while it's still open.

Delivery slots has to be another huge factor, the 73X has a rather large backlog atm

Seems to be a typo.
Never heard of a widebody B737-900

Hours after the announcement, Turkish Airlines also reportedly sought prices for up to 40 wide-body 737-900 aircraft.

Afaik Turkish Airlines MAX order included 10-15 MAX9.
The mentioned 40 A/C might be the LOI of 40x 787-9

I wonder if they meant A350-900, that was rumoured after the B787 announcement

Already 'ethical' financiers and funding syndicates, are not willing to fund older or less efficient aircraft.

If Corsia gathers momentum as proponents envisage, from 2026, not only will airline operations be effectively restricted to last calendar year's fuel uploaded, less mandated reduction (they can breach, but will have to offset on a sliding scale), but each flight will be rated (presumably CASM-based or similar), with the airline required to offset (or receive credits).

Surely the end result, is we will see fewer, smaller, and more, larger aircraft (unless electric becomes viable). Fewer frequencies with larger aircraft. Rail replacing shorter routes, especially in Europe. Something which airlines like TK need to very mindful of in the future, and airport owners too.

Most countries and airlines have signed up to participate. Given the continuing proliferation of NB orders, makes me wonder how many think the impact will be 2-3 CEO's away, so not my problem. Unless 5-6 NB's at 80% LF are really more emission friendly than one A380 at the same LF on the same route.

Dutchy wrote:

Arion640 wrote:

Dutchy wrote:

I found this most remarkable. Why would anyone buy the 739 when the 73X is available?

Cheap cheap cheap. Milk the production line while it's still open.

are there still slots available for 737NG?

Yes. CFM is under-producing the LEAP. They are discounting the old engines to keep Boeing and Airbus happy.

Lightsaber

lightsaber wrote:

Dutchy wrote:

Arion640 wrote:

Cheap cheap cheap. Milk the production line while it's still open.

are there still slots available for 737NG?

Yes. CFM is under-producing the LEAP. They are discounting the old engines to keep Boeing and Airbus happy.

Lightsaber

ah right, so there are near-term slots available until the LEAP can be produced in great numbers.

Does this mean we can restart the deeply unlikely speculation about TK taking 12-16 747-8 passenger models?

I didn't realize that TK handled lots of Turkey O&D traffic. I thought they had a lot more international transfer traffic.

TK has quite a large domestic network that connects at IST and SAW to connect to other destinations. Even with international transfer traffic which helps them on some markets, the A380 is too big for them. The 77W and the 789 is the perfect aircraft size for them. Airlines like EK and QR have way different models, as they have no domestic feed and must rely on transfer traffic to fill there planes.

airbazar wrote:

Just like with EK, the O&D is irrelevant here and something that can be built over time. The India frequencies are important in order to sustain high volume traffic to the U.S. and Europe.

The O&D is indeed relevant as the Indian entity uses that as a base for awarding traffic rights, and this is a major reason why TK are stuck with a single spoke each to BOM and DEL and little else. EK is in the UAE, a country that houses nearly 3 million Indians. Moreover, the Indian carriers (AI, 9W, SG, 6E, IX) keep hitting the ceiling on their quote of the India - UAE bilateral, hence providing additional justification for increasing rights to the likes of EK, EY and G9.

Turkish enjoys none of this, which is why they are where they are with respect to India.