Turkish Airlines already flies to more countries than any other airline in the world, and now the airline is adding yet another country to its network. Best of all, this is yet another fun fifth freedom option.
Continue reading: Turkish Airlines Adds Santiago Flights, Via Sao Paulo
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
GRU - SCL is brutal 5 am flight so it doesn't really help as a 5th freedom unless one is only buying a one way SCL-GRU and not GRU-SCL.
Interesting is that what Turkish had actually promised was Rio and Santiago, two destinations in one go, to compete with Emirates. What went wrong there (IST-GIG-SCL)?
Turkish had also promised, as part of its megalomania, to fly to Asunción this year - what for??
For a business traveler that does not want to sleep in SCL the night before, it's convenient. There's a lot of business traffic between Sao Paulo and Santiago. For those travelers, it's actually the SCL-GRU leg the one that kills your working day.
Surely, Turkish Airlines' flights to Melbourne, Australia (MEL) are a greater distance from Istanbul (IST) at over 9,000 miles...
TK isn’t leaving enough operational time at GRU or SCL for those turns. Expect those flights to be late late late.
Paraguay has a lot of shady connections to the Middle East (drugs, weapons, smuggling, etc. with Iran and Hezbollah). Ciudad del Este is a big hub for that kind of illicit activity. Lots of interesting articles on it especially Jeffrey Goldberg at the Atlantic (old but good read).
@Tulasi, you expect Genocide J."GOLDBERG" to say something nice about Middle Eastern countries besides your Hometown Israel? Give me a Break! By the way, are you finished Bombing the children?
Agree; 90 minute turns 3x in a row is going to be near impossible for them. I’d guess 1h+ late by the end of the run
Whatever your thoughts blaming an entire group for bombing is like saying all Muslims are terrorists.
The 5th freedom flights are cool but often at inconvenient times. Anyone seriously flying to BA from SCL or GRU would want to fly in to AEP and save a bunch of hassle.
This reminds me: EK launched SCL flights via GRU in July 2018, but never resumed SCL after the pandemic, despite launching MEX and BOG in the meantime post-COVID. I’m not counting on SCL to return to the Emirates network.
It must be quite an ordeal for Y passengers. Seat model (turkish own industry) in TK's 359 is far from perfect and narrowed. Safran seats, like in ET's 359 are so much better for such flights, but SCL is not on ET's radars...
Great point forgot about the SCL tag — any other not-yet-resumed EK destinations post-COVID? Can’t think of any others. Heard Porto will be relaunched in FY25 with A359
https://aviacionline.com/2024/03/emirates-resumes-flights-to-cambodia-after-four-years/
Cambodia joins Adelaide as two destinations resumed by Emirates in 2024. According to Cirium, the remaining destinations to be reactivated compared to prepandemia are Santiago de Chile, Yangon, Porto, Edinburgh and Istanbul/Sabiha Gokcen. Khartoum, Tel Aviv and Kabul remain suspended due to political instability. On the other hand, services to Lagos and Abuja are suspended due to economic instability.
I’d love to see RGN make a comeback, especially since it operated a tag to HAN which is now served nonstop. Also in South Asia, I don’t see KBL making a comeback, especially since FZ serves it and the demand from the highly unstable Afghanistan is not enough to justify a 777. (TK relaunched KBL in May with its A330-200s.)
Thanks for the info!
RGN would be wonderful to see again, and I agree about KBL; given the instability there, a whole EK 777 seems unlikely. OPO and EDI should be back with the A350 as well. Wish they would bring back SAW too; used to be less than half an hour's drive to where I needed to go often compared to an hour and a half now. But doubt that will happen with FZ double daily on that route
Amazing that there are four *A carriers who fly from Sao Paulo to BA, but there is very little schedule coordination between them. In particular, United, which from Newark only serves Sao Paulo, should better coordinate to facilitate connections to BA and Santiago.
It may be better now, but I once flew United to Sao Paulo, just missed the AC and Swiss flights to BA. The UA flight was on-time, but arrived after the gates for those flights closed. The Ethiopian flight was 5 hours later.