Turkish Airlines flies to more countries than any other airline in the world. Historically, the biggest gap in the carrier’s network has been the South Pacific. Back in March 2024, the airline added its first service to Australia, as it started flying from Istanbul to Melbourne via Singapore. The airline is now adding a second route to Australia…
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Turkish Airlines launching flights to Sydney, Australia
As of December 4, 2024, Turkish Airlines will be launching flights from Istanbul (IST) to Sydney (SYD) via Kuala Lumpur (KUL). Specifically, the service will operate 4x weekly with the following schedule:
TK174 Istanbul to Kuala Lumpur departing 3:15PM arriving 6:20AM (+1 day)
TK174 Kuala Lumpur to Sydney departing 7:40AM arriving 6:30PM
TK175 Sydney to Kuala Lumpur departing 8:40PM arriving 1:55AM (+1 day)
TK175 Kuala Lumpur to Istanbul departing 3:55AM arriving 10:15AM
Turkish Airlines will use an Airbus A350-900 for the route. The eastbound journey is blocked at 19hr15min, while the westbound journey is blocked at 21hr35min.
The entire routing covers a distance of 9,301 miles, with the first sector covering a distance of 5,212 miles, and the second sector covering a distance of 4,088 miles. Impressively enough, the stop in Kuala Lumpur adds only a single mile to the direct air distance between Istanbul and Sydney (though it adds around three hours of travel time, give or take).
The airline is using one of its existing Istanbul to Kuala Lumpur services for this new routing, meaning that overall capacity between Istanbul and Kuala Lumpur is remaining unchanged, with 14 weekly flights. The Kuala Lumpur to Sydney flight will be a fifth freedom service, meaning passengers can travel exclusively between Malaysia and Australia on Turkish Airlines.
Sydney is now Turkish Airlines’ furthest destination, in terms of distance from Istanbul. It beats out Melbourne and Santiago, which are the two other longest destinations (both also served via fifth freedom service).
Turkish Airlines aims for nonstop Australia flights in 2026
As you can see, for now Turkish Airlines is serving Australia via two fifth freedom flights. However, the airline has plans to improve the journey in the future. Specifically, Turkish Airlines plans to fly nonstop from Istanbul to Sydney as of 2026, and nonstop to Melbourne as of 2027.
Turkish Airlines has a massive number of new jets on order, and the nonstop service will be possible once the airline takes delivery of Airbus A350-1000s. These planes should be a treat — not only is the A350-1000 an incredibly capable plane, but they’ll also have Turkish Airlines’ new business class product.
It’s an exciting time for ultra long haul flights to and from Australia, given that Qantas is also expected to start its “Project Sunrise” flights, which will see the airline flying nonstop from Sydney and Melbourne to New York and London. These flights will be operated using modified Airbus A350-1000s, with some very comfortable interiors.
Bottom line
As of December 2024, Turkish Airlines will add service to Sydney, as the airline launches 4x weekly flights via Kuala Lumpur. It’s awesome to see Turkish Airlines expanding in the South Pacific, though it’ll be even cooler once the airline is able to operate these flights nonstop.
What do you make of Turkish Airlines adding flights to Sydney?
Could someone explain why TK insists that IST-SYD only earns 7500 miles instead of 9290 miles?
(IST-MEL is correctly displayed as earning 9087 miles)
I even asked them via the feedback form (and after submitting screenshots of their website showing this flight and the miles earned), they replied:
‘... Upon our investigation subsequent to your feedback, we have not identified any errors in the number of miles eligible for earning on the...
Could someone explain why TK insists that IST-SYD only earns 7500 miles instead of 9290 miles?
(IST-MEL is correctly displayed as earning 9087 miles)
I even asked them via the feedback form (and after submitting screenshots of their website showing this flight and the miles earned), they replied:
‘... Upon our investigation subsequent to your feedback, we have not identified any errors in the number of miles eligible for earning on the flights you submitted.’
"You may contact with us regarding our response via clicking here and creating a new feedback." ???
Certainly a much needed improvement.
I’ve flown to SYD on a TK Y ticket, KUL-SYD is currently operated by MAS as a code share.
As an elite plus on TK I got zero benefits on the code share, no priority boarding, no lounge access, and no miles!
On a positive note the Malaysian airlines crew was much, much more friendly than TK’s and much to my surprise they even had whiskey in economy.
"Sydney is now Turkish Airlines’ furthest destination"
Ben just trying to be helpful, since you're a writer, as you get this wrong all the time.
FARTHER is used when you're dealing with distance or geography.
FURTHER is used when you're dealing with an idea or objective.
Since this blog is 99% about distance or geography, guess which one you need to start using. :)
This is not true. When dealing with distance, they can be used interchangeably. Some might prefer to differentiate them, but it is not a rule, merely a preference.
Is TK allowed to pick up passengers between KUL-SYD? At the moment it seems you can’t book that route although you can already book IST-SYD via KUL.
Says a lot about the continued growth for Oz...the last 15 years or so, in particular (minus COVID).
I like the KUL routing, as it comes with hugely less competition versus SIN.
The stop had to be either BKK or KUL. SIN-SYD already has BA as a European competitor to TK.
While true, note EK had been flying SIN-MEL for 20+ years when TK launched IST-SIN-MEL and TK chose to compete against them anyway
I'm surprised it isn't being done through SIN, given it being a fellow *Alliance hub. Though I guess it's good to give people more options between SYD and KUL for now.
For these routes *A connections (and connections in SIN/KUL) don’t work due to timing. like on the return this flight lands at 1:55 am in KUL and departs at 3:55 am, while MEL-SIN-IST lands at 2:50 am in SIN and departs at 4:30 am. in both cases connection opportunities are virtually nonexistent
Star Alliance hub doesn't really help them, unless it's a J/V partner... and SQ doesn't really get down like that with just about any of its Star partners on longhaul.
There's really nothing TK could get from SQ@SIN, that they couldn't also receive from using an interline with MH@KUL, if feed is what they sought.