Turkish Airlines has just put its newest route to the United States on sale, as flagged by @IshrionA. This represents the new longest route for this particular airport…
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Turkish Airlines adds Istanbul to Denver route
As of June 11, 2024, Turkish Airlines will be launching year-round flights between Istanbul (IST) and Denver (DEN). The flight will initially operate 3x weekly, before being increased to 4x weekly as of July 14, 2024. The flight will operate with the following schedule:
TK201 Istanbul to Denver departing 1:55PM arriving 5:40PM
TK202 Denver to Istanbul departing 7:35PM arriving 4:25PM (+1 day)
The service will initially be offered on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, before being extended to Sundays as well. The flight will cover a distance of 6,129 miles in each direction, and is blocked at 12hr45min westbound and 11hr50min eastbound. Turkish Airlines will use an Airbus A350-900 for the route. Based on looking at the seat map, it would appear that the airline plans to use one of the ex-Aeroflot Airbus A350s, featuring a phenomenal business class product.
Turkish Airlines first hinted at launching this route in August 2021, so it’s nice to see this finally become a reality. Turkish Airlines flies to more countries than any other airline in the world. As far as destinations in the United States go, the airline otherwise flies to Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Newark, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington. What a network!
My take on Turkish Airlines adding Denver flights
This is a pretty awesome new route for Denver, as it represents the airport’s new longest route. Currently the airport’s longest route is to Tokyo Narita (NRT), which covers a distance of 5,787 miles, so this new service beats that by well over 300 miles.
It’s always fun to see airlines add new routes, especially when we’re talking about an airline as global as Turkish Airlines. Given how many places Turkish Airlines already flies to in the United States, I’d say Denver is logically among the next cities you’d expect from the airline. A few thoughts on Turkish Airlines adding Denver flights:
- Clearly a major motivation here is that Denver is also a Star Alliance hub, so this service will offer lots of connectivity to the region
- Given the number of places Turkish Airlines flies, this will also be useful for people traveling from Denver to the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and beyond
- There really isn’t any competition for a route like this in Denver; none of the Gulf carriers fly to Denver, and there’s not really any service east of Western Europe
There are business class award seats available
This new flight between Istanbul and Denver is already bookable, and I see two business class award seats available on a vast majority of flights. This is a great option for flying to Istanbul, or for traveling with one stop to just about anywhere in the world.
The best program to redeem miles through depends on your final destination, but in general Air Canada Aeroplan and Avianca LifeMiles are going to be your best bets, in terms of the number of transferable points currencies they partner with. Turkish Miles&Smiles can also be useful.
Bottom line
Turkish Airlines will be launching year-round flights to Denver as of June 2024. The airline will operate this route with an Airbus A350, and it represents a new longest route for the airport. It’s impressive to see Turkish’s continued expansion!
What do you make of Turkish Airlines’ new Denver route?
Ex Aeroflop A350 only flies til somewhere November only, December onwards all old A350 with the same seats as SQ Regional, that narrow J
Surely 88k + USD5.60 and no cancellation charges through UA is better than 90k + CAD127 and CAD150 cancellation through AC?
I don't think it's wise for Turkish to fly their A350 with their premium seats to a place like Denver. They should fly a 787 there instead and save those for destinations like Los Angeles and New York. Once again, Turkish is too corruptly run to be a top tier airline.
Let's hope they make it a codeshare with a U.S. flag carrier so U.S. govt employees can use it for official travel.
Beware if you book with United Mileage Plus - there is a years-long IT glitch between United and Turkish that causes these awards to ticket with no baggage allocation. You'll be forced to pay hundreds of dollars for bags at check-in.
Interesting, at biz class check in IST I had to show the lady my baggage allowance from the booking email. I didn't have to pay anything but definitely checks out that their system don't talk baggage.
I'm seeing 4x weekly (Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday) available to book.
From 9th July its 4* Weekly
Award space seems to be phantom… can’t book with United via Premier desk or online :(
Haven’t tried with Aeroplan
“This is a pretty awesome new route for Denver, as it represents the carrier’s new longest route. Currently the airport’s longest route is to Tokyo Narita (NRT), which covers a distance of 5,787 miles, so this new service beats that by well over 300 miles.“
Did someone else write the article for you ? One would think you know way better than that : both IST-LAX and IST-SFO are way longer than IST-DEN…
I believe he meant “airport’s” instead of “carrier’s”
This is a very common issue with this site. Lots of typos and errors like this. I've given feedback on improving this, like simply trading off a few articles per week to improve on quality, but to no avail.
Turkish is showing a 777-300ER on that route
Just on 6/11 (inaugural flight), I believe. Most dates I looked at showed the A350.
I booked on the inaugural and now bummed it's on the 777 in a crappy old config. You'd think they'd want their first flight to show off their newest product. Doesn't make sense that all the subsequent flights are on an A350, with only this one on a 777. Hope it changes.
Thanks! Booked IST => DEN, it didn’t show on Lifemiles unfortunately so 90k Aeroplan miles it is…
United is showing a ton of awards but it errors when I try to book
My Aeroplan booking went thru!
Same here. Haven't tried calling yet. It's showing up on Aeroplan too, but I haven't tried to book all the way through there.
Will the Denver takeoffs need to be capacity limited to accommodate the high altitude?
DEN has 16,000ft runway, I've always been under the impression that's for helping avoid hot/high restrictions?
It helps, but what's really at play is the rotation-speed rating of the aircraft's tires. If altitude causes you to exceed it during takeoff run, then even a 16kilometer runway wouldn't help.
Fortunately, that's far less of a problem for modern aircraft than it was even a decade or so ago. A359 should be able to do this with not much problem at all.
Not really. The runways at DEN are pretty long to accommodate a long haul flight.
The evening departure time will help. It won’t be as hot as it would be for a midday departure.
TK are turning into a global powerhouse. In fact, I read they are one of the most profitable airlines in the world, if not the #1 (even above Delta if you can believe it). They've taken on the same model as QR and EK with their connecting model via IST.
They offer very good cash fares to basically anywhere. And the advantage is that you don't need to reposition domestically due to their great North...
TK are turning into a global powerhouse. In fact, I read they are one of the most profitable airlines in the world, if not the #1 (even above Delta if you can believe it). They've taken on the same model as QR and EK with their connecting model via IST.
They offer very good cash fares to basically anywhere. And the advantage is that you don't need to reposition domestically due to their great North American coverage.
Now, if only they can fix their godforsaken 2-3-2 and 2-2-2 business class products on their 777s and A330s.
They are designing a new seat for the 777Ws with the 1-2-1 concept.
That's right. The 777s will get a new 1-2-1 seat. The A330s will probably stay 2-2-2, but those will probably not be used in the North American sectors and will get switched to mid-haul in Africa/Middle East/Europe.
QR is the most profitable airline, per 2022-23 stats. It's followed by Ryan Air and IAG (BA and IB).
Turkish Airlines, the airline where you can’t sign up for a loyalty program unless you figure out the unwritten rule that your password has to be exactly 6 characters and numeric, and has to not have sequential or repeating numbers??????
THANK YOU!!!
I've been trying to sign up for a Miles & Smiles account for over two years now, but I could never get the password thing to work. I always thought it was a glitch. Now it makes sense, as my numbers were both repeating and sequential. Again, thank you!
although TK is part of Star, they aren't part of the UA/LH group JV so competes for a fair amount of traffic that could flow over the Star JV partners.
after picking off other airline hubs, it was not only a given that TK would increase its presence in UA hubs but that UA will have to balance its non-JV and JV contributions.
From 9th July it becomes 4 weekly with the ex-Aeroflot A359.