While it remains to be seen with which timeline this will happen, Turkish Airlines has revealed the next markets in the United States that it hopes to expand to.
In this post:
Turkish Airlines outlines US growth plans
This week, Turkish Airlines launched its newest flight to the United States, as the airline began nonstop service between Istanbul (IST) and Denver (DEN). Turkish chairman Ahmet Bolat gave some interviews around this launch, including revealing the next cities in the United States that the airline hopes to fly to.
Bolat shared plans for Turkish to fly from Istanbul to the following gateways in the United States:
- Charlotte (CLT)
- Minneapolis (MSP)
- Orlando (MCO)
- Philadelphia (PHL)
For context, Turkish currently serves 14 destinations in the United States, including Atlanta (ATL), Boston (BOS), Chicago (ORD), Dallas (DFW), Denver (DEN), Detroit (DTW), Houston (IAH), Los Angeles (LAX), Miami (MIA), New York (JFK), Newark (EWR), San Francisco (SFO), Seattle (SEA), and Washington (IAD).
Bolat also stated that he expects Turkish will eventually serve 20 destinations in the United States. So the above four proposed routes would get the airline up to 18 destinations, meaning there are two more that may be on the carrier’s radar.
Turkish is unique in often revealing years in advance where it intends to fly to. Many airlines try to stay tight-lipped for as long as possible, to prevent a competitive response. But clearly that’s not something that Turkish is concerned about.
My take on Turkish Airlines’ US expansion plans
Turkish Airlines is already a massive airline, and flies to more countries than any other airline in the world. The airline has even bigger growth plans, and wants to double in size between 2023 and 2033. The airline can make most markets work, given just how expansive its network is. It doesn’t matter whether you want to fly to Ashgabat or Kabul or Johannesburg or Mumbai or Zanzibar, as the airline can get you there in one stop.
It is interesting to note the extent to which Turkish’s network growth is focused on serving hubs of US carriers, regardless of whether or not they partner with them. It of course makes sense for Turkish to serve hubs of Star Alliance carriers, like Denver, Houston, Newark, etc.
But now Turkish is going after oneworld and SkyTeam hubs as well. In terms of American’s hubs, Turkish recently launched flights to Dallas, and is now planning flights to Charlotte and Philadelphia. Meanwhile in terms of Delta hubs, Turkish recently launched flights to Detroit, and is now planning flights to Minneapolis.
Ultimately this might just be a coincidence, at least to some extent. Turkish seems to be targeting the highest traffic airports in the United States, which makes sense. Perhaps that doesn’t fully factor in that some of these airports are big because they’re huge connecting hubs, rather than because they’re huge markets in and of themselves.
Looking at the 20 highest traffic international airports in the United States, the airports that Turkish hasn’t announced plans to serve include Fort Lauderdale (FLL), Las Vegas (LAS), and Phoenix (PHX).
Bottom line
Turkish Airlines is continuing to grow in the United States, and the company’s chairman has revealed that the airline intends to fly to 20 destinations in the US, with the next cities including Charlotte, Minneapolis, Orlando, and Philadelphia.
None of these markets should be particularly surprising, since there are only so many major airports in the United States. It seems that Turkish can make just about any market work nowadays, given how its network has scaled. I must say that I’m a bit surprised that the airline doesn’t find it more lucrative to ramp up service in some existing markets, rather than adding more and more destinations.
What do you make of Turkish’s expansion plans?
This area is under served from that area it is most welcoming step from Turkish airlines, strongly recommend for early start before some other operators from middle East steps in.
Turkish Airlines is very aggressively into the US market now and 20 years back they should have started flights to Charlotte, Orlando, Phoenix, Tampa, Philadelphia, Nashville, Las Vegas. With the ME3 carriers already active Turkish is competing with US & ME3 carriers. Will Turkish survive? When Turkish started flights to Atlanta recently it was struggling to have full capacity and hard to maintain daily service. Let’s see how it will go !
Guaranteed all Minneapolis & Istanbul flights will sell out. Don’t understand why Detroit got the connection before Minneapolis. Yes, Detroit’s metro 15% bigger population than Minneapolis, but the household income in Minneapolis much higher than Detroit’s.
Out of 50 states Minnesota ranks 13th in household income compared to Michigan 34th.
Fortune 500 companies Minneapolis metro outnumbers Detroit 16-9. But congratulations to Detroit!
Love Turkish Airlines. Have flown their Business Class and it is a great product. Service is unbelievable and food is great. I used to be AA Executive Platinum out of PHL, but AA has abandoned PHL and only seems to fly domestic. Every PHL international flight is code share. I tried the code share a few times, but if you run into a problem, good luck! Everything has to go through AA and AA has to talk to the code share airline. Major hassle. Go Turkish!
Very happy to hear that Turkish Airlines may come to Philadelphia. Philly is dominated by American Airlines which has a very small international lineup. They usually turn over international flights to British Airways and what little they fly internationally, is quite expensive. So, PHL really needs international airlines. I've been on Turkish Airlines before and I really enjoyed the experience. The food is very good, not just "good for airline" food. Their prices are also...
Very happy to hear that Turkish Airlines may come to Philadelphia. Philly is dominated by American Airlines which has a very small international lineup. They usually turn over international flights to British Airways and what little they fly internationally, is quite expensive. So, PHL really needs international airlines. I've been on Turkish Airlines before and I really enjoyed the experience. The food is very good, not just "good for airline" food. Their prices are also very good.
Honolulu will surprise you as a non stop destination after receiving A350-1000's
They are teaching airline CEOs in the US that the way to do business is not to nickel and dime passengers, taking all their benefits such as blankets, pillows and soft drinks, but to give them more comfort, more service, more perks. Turkish Airlines is a “flag” airline, profitability is not their main purpose. Their main purpose is flying the “flag” around the world and serve customers with great service and reasonable rates. I was...
They are teaching airline CEOs in the US that the way to do business is not to nickel and dime passengers, taking all their benefits such as blankets, pillows and soft drinks, but to give them more comfort, more service, more perks. Turkish Airlines is a “flag” airline, profitability is not their main purpose. Their main purpose is flying the “flag” around the world and serve customers with great service and reasonable rates. I was an Exec Plat with AA for 20 years. I don’t want to be recognized for my credit card spend. Now I fly TK as an Elite Plus. It is not the best airline in the world, but it is consistently good. Flying in the US is hell. True service is experienced when flying internationally.
Next stage Turkish Airlines’s miles smile to expand credit card for US consumers
It's not surprising they are also adding service to non Star Alliance hubs. I would think their goal is to provide an endless number of 1 stop route combos. I don't think they are as concerned about feed from United.
Increase weekly Detroit -Istanbul flights and lower down the ticket prices for both business and economy classes. Turkish airlines then can take the major passengers from DTW to Europe, Middle East and Asia.
Is there a rule that no US carrier can fly to Turkey? I have to wonder why no US carrier, more specifically United is not flying to Turkey??? Clearly there is a massive demand
All the US airlines stopped flying to Turkey during the failed coup in 2016 and haven't restarted those routes. There’s no ban on US carriers flying to Türkiye, they just can't compete with Turkish Airlines, which has a strong hold on the market. I fly to Istanbul from the US multiple times a year with Delta, but I have to connect through Paris or Amsterdam, which is a hassle. It makes me want to ditch my loyalty to Delta and just fly direct with Turkish.
There's no rule like that. There's an article written by Simple Flying from a few years back that perfectly explains why US carriers don't fly to Istanbul. Delta, Air Canada and United all used to fly to Istanbul prior to the 2016 Ataturk airport terrorist attack. After that tourism to Turkey dropped significantly resulting in these airlines suspending operations. Beside this it's very hard to compete with Turkish Airlines on these routes. Most of Turkish...
There's no rule like that. There's an article written by Simple Flying from a few years back that perfectly explains why US carriers don't fly to Istanbul. Delta, Air Canada and United all used to fly to Istanbul prior to the 2016 Ataturk airport terrorist attack. After that tourism to Turkey dropped significantly resulting in these airlines suspending operations. Beside this it's very hard to compete with Turkish Airlines on these routes. Most of Turkish Airlines passengers flying to Istanbul connect to other destinations which is their bigt advantage and something not possible for US airlines that want to fly to Turkey. Demand for point to point flying to Istanbul is not enough to compete with Turkish Airlines on these routes. Also US carriers like American have significant capacity issues with planes so they rather use the planes they have to destinations where they think to make more profit
The route to Charlotte Airport would be more profitable and this should be preferable to Turkish airline.
They will need to be careful re consumer issues if they expand here. I have been trying to buy Tix on their website for 3 weeks. At final click it says no seats. When I call( 9 different days) they show a much higher price. Say they'll report it and don't. Even wrote CEO and no change. Tried to buy on Booking and went through then rejected after paid. Waiting for credit back. Weird and wonder if consumer scam or glitch...
I can't believe that no changes were immediately instituted systemwide at Turkish Airlines even after you wrote the CEO. You're probably on to something bigger at play thinking that the company, Turkish Airlines itself is a consumer scam.
TK is using its better location than the ME3 (closer to N. America) and low labor costs to go after large markets.
They do participate in standard interline ticketing so even a passenger that flies JAX-CLT on AA can connect to TK.
TK is an interesting carrier. I recently flew them SEA-IST-DEL in business class. The in-flight experience was wonderful, although the 777 used from IST-DEL was outdated, with 2-3-2 seating in biz. The food, onboard chefs, and flight attendants were all wonderful. However, ground services were an issue and would have been worse had we been in the back of the bus:
1. Long lines for baggage check-in at SEA (for economy: Biz was efficient, with...
TK is an interesting carrier. I recently flew them SEA-IST-DEL in business class. The in-flight experience was wonderful, although the 777 used from IST-DEL was outdated, with 2-3-2 seating in biz. The food, onboard chefs, and flight attendants were all wonderful. However, ground services were an issue and would have been worse had we been in the back of the bus:
1. Long lines for baggage check-in at SEA (for economy: Biz was efficient, with short lines).
2. Both flights left late without much explanation.
3. At the much vaunted Biz lounge at IST, the "concierge desk" couldn't/wouldn't answer basic flight information questions. I couldn't figure out what their purpose was.
4. To get on the connecting flight at IST, all passengers had to show travel documents to ONE agent, creating a huge choke point.
We returned to SEA from Singapore, via SFO, on United. Personally, I don't think United gets enough love in these forums. Everything was easy, one-time, and friendly. No, the food and beverage offerings in Polaris aren't as impressive as on TK and no flight attendant insisted on cleaning the restroom prior to my entry, as happened on TK, but I was well-fed and comfortable on the lengthy TPAC segment of our trip.
MSP even with its large East African community I always wondered if there was enough demand that was not adequately served by ET routes to the US or KL via AMS or AF via CDG (even if it is more West African centric). There was a little talk about a nonstop from ADD on ET but again, how much demand is there? It would be a bit easier due to distance via IST though and...
MSP even with its large East African community I always wondered if there was enough demand that was not adequately served by ET routes to the US or KL via AMS or AF via CDG (even if it is more West African centric). There was a little talk about a nonstop from ADD on ET but again, how much demand is there? It would be a bit easier due to distance via IST though and less backtracking for many destinations in the Middle East and Eastern Europe though. Here is hoping though.
CLT is a banking center, but it's already served pretty well considering AA's TATL flights along with LH and BA. It seems to me that TK could do better in so many other markets.
CLT is a banking center for domestic back-office administration purposes. Bank of America and Wells Fargo have basically all of their international functions in NYC, SFO, etc.
This is objectively false.
Why does it have so few international airlines then? Charlotte is just a medium mid-sized US city.
because AA's massive hub provides most of it's int'l service.
When did BA start CLT service? They haven’t been here since October 2002.
I remember reading some time ago that the majority of TK IST-MIA flights are people connecting to MCO
Why MCO!! It’s dreadful! TK needs to fly to TPA! There’s a huge demand for travel to India, ME and Asia!
The easy and obvious answer being: because MCO has far more demand than TPA.
BA, by far the longest-serving longhaul carrier at TPA, doesn't even offer connections to India, the middle east and Asia from TPA. If there actually was compelling demand, they would've done so long ago.
Clt is really odd, honestly. It’s mostly a transfer hub and I don’t see how it could support the flight with the local market. I’ve always felt Philly has been extremely underutilized by international carriers. The city and region itself has huge immigrant populations from Africa, the Middle East, India, etc. Also hear once AA gets enough planes they are adding a second Doha flight because that route has been overbooked almost every single day....
Clt is really odd, honestly. It’s mostly a transfer hub and I don’t see how it could support the flight with the local market. I’ve always felt Philly has been extremely underutilized by international carriers. The city and region itself has huge immigrant populations from Africa, the Middle East, India, etc. Also hear once AA gets enough planes they are adding a second Doha flight because that route has been overbooked almost every single day. I’m wondering if Turkish airlines has been hearing what a cash cow it is for AA and they are going to take the plunge.
Have you been to Charlotte? It's not the cow town in the middle of a field that so many aviation industry "experts" make it out to be.
It's also got the lowest O&D ratio of any FAA-designated large hub, and has a pittance of the international demand per PDEW that its peers (in traffic numbers) do. Hence the common refrain.
The reason the demand is so low is because AA has a monopoly and charges so much for flights (domestic and international). There is only 1 long-haul international flight (Lufthansa to Munich) that isn't OneWorld out of CLT and the OneWorld options aren't very comprehensive either. I'm really excited to see more long-haul international with this flight and will most likely take the flight within the first year.
Agreed! The prices out of charlotte are much higher now because of the AA stranglehold. Many people choose to connect in other destinations to get better pricing, despite the inconvenience.
@John - pricing ex-CLT has no bearing on the prices of itineraries that connect through CLT. CLT is mostly connecting traffic.
RDU would make more sense than CLT, imo. All those tech companies and universities, big local Asian/Middle Eastern populations, and very little competition.
Wow. You dont know much about North Carolina. RDU is already served by LH, AF and Icelandic with American flying daily RDU -LHR. Its hardly undetserved. Charlotte is much larger than RDU and like RDU are both among the fastest growing metros in the country. Both airports can support as proven at RDU.
It doesn’t matter whether you want to fly to Ashgabat or Kabul or Johannesburg or Mumbai or Zanzibar, as the airline can get you there in one stop.
Funny you mention Mumbai here. India is the one exception, or I should be saying limitation, to TK’s growth plans, as all airports outside of DEL and BOM are off-limits. Erdoğan is no friend of Delhi, and the Indian DGCA would rather keep TK out of BLR...
It doesn’t matter whether you want to fly to Ashgabat or Kabul or Johannesburg or Mumbai or Zanzibar, as the airline can get you there in one stop.
Funny you mention Mumbai here. India is the one exception, or I should be saying limitation, to TK’s growth plans, as all airports outside of DEL and BOM are off-limits. Erdoğan is no friend of Delhi, and the Indian DGCA would rather keep TK out of BLR and other cities. Hence TK had to partner with 6E and lease it two 777s.
that's true the bizarre level of protectiveness that DCGA has taken against the ME3 and TK has really shifted that market. TK still operates just a single 77W to DEL and BOM outside of the IndiGo JV. I think it's pretty clear they'd want to have, like, 3 flights/day to both of those gateways + BLR/HYD/MAA/etc. Of course the same desire for network expansion is replicated across the ME3 and with SQ etc
DCGA's anti-everyone-but-Indian-airline...
that's true the bizarre level of protectiveness that DCGA has taken against the ME3 and TK has really shifted that market. TK still operates just a single 77W to DEL and BOM outside of the IndiGo JV. I think it's pretty clear they'd want to have, like, 3 flights/day to both of those gateways + BLR/HYD/MAA/etc. Of course the same desire for network expansion is replicated across the ME3 and with SQ etc
DCGA's anti-everyone-but-Indian-airline setup is incredibly shortsighted though. Yes they want everyone to take Air India or whatever but that transformation will take a long time and in the short term India is not a country whose residents have an extra $500 USD per economy seat to pay for being in an artificially uncompetitive market. Turkish can expand elsewhere (as they have) while the people who get burned end up being their citizens.
I'm sure, TK will add LAS, PHX and maybe even FLL as well in the near future! ;-)
LAS would make very good sense, as it's a well connected airport, PHX good for connecting flights to Hawaii, but lack of partner airline there, FLL is dominated by Low cost carriers, i think, TK would rather add another frequency to MIA instead.
The big trouble with that nice airline in the STAR ALLIANCE is,...
I'm sure, TK will add LAS, PHX and maybe even FLL as well in the near future! ;-)
LAS would make very good sense, as it's a well connected airport, PHX good for connecting flights to Hawaii, but lack of partner airline there, FLL is dominated by Low cost carriers, i think, TK would rather add another frequency to MIA instead.
The big trouble with that nice airline in the STAR ALLIANCE is, they are treated as a secondary partner!
Not only is Lufthansa trying to avoid TK wherever possible (e.g. MUC T2 . . . the only airline NOT allowed at that damn LH Terminal, is TK, while other non STAR airlines use T2) I guess, LH finally realized, they have NO CHANCE competing with TK within Europe, so they stopped ALL flights to IST from Munich, Duesseldorf, Berlin, only a few flights from Frankfurt left ;-) Just 2 examples on how much TK is not wanted by there partners. UNITED, same thing.
They all know, that TK has so much more to offer, compared to there Service offered.
TK should sign a deal with Hawaiian to connect on there flights to HI, a big market in Europe, but try to get flights there with a decent connection! UA maybe DL, the rest . . .a nightmare!
I agree that the onboard offering of TK is better than UA. When I flew TK I found that the onboard experience was better than UA but everything outside of the onboard experience was much worse than UA (including trying to access and make changes to the reservation on the app and website, their customer service phone line, having to navigate a missed connection and getting myself on to the flight that made the most...
I agree that the onboard offering of TK is better than UA. When I flew TK I found that the onboard experience was better than UA but everything outside of the onboard experience was much worse than UA (including trying to access and make changes to the reservation on the app and website, their customer service phone line, having to navigate a missed connection and getting myself on to the flight that made the most sense for me, trying to claim compensation that I was legally entitled to as a result of a delayed arrival into my destination).
I think OMAAT has written in the past that other readers have also had this similar complaint about TK.
I have absolutely no plans to fly Turkish ever again.
They keep their cabins way too hot even after passengers pleaded with the FAs to make it cooler.
Never again.
I wonder how they will prioritize these routes. I am sure it will be years before we see service to some of these locations. I think they had talked about MCO for a while so I assume that will be first. I have often wondered why they don't fly to PHL since it has a large O/D traffic and American sucks in terms of international route network. Maybe one of the future airports that is not on the list is BWI.
The question its why none of the big three fly to Istanbul. Don't want to compete in that market.
Delta flew there for years, alongside Cairo, Dubai, and Amman. All of which it's abandoned. The surprise to me, is that United doesn't, given its affinity for trying new longhaul, and a Star Alliance giant hub on the other side.
United also flew to IST from EWR a while back. I took that flight but compared to Turkish planes and inflight service, United was way behind. Turks care a lot about the inflight service. I doubt anyone would fly United more than once. I certainly did not.
UA in a sense competes w/ TK for Europe traffic and connections. TK is more closely aligned w/ the ME3 carriers. Whereas UA is more aligned with their Star Alliance JV that TK is not a part of.
I am super excited about direct flights to MCO, the "international" airport with ZERO direct flights to/from Europe!!! Wooo!!!
Comedy is not your strong suit.
Can you please explain the joke (if there is one)?
Frankfurt, Dublin, London, Manchester, Reykjavik all are direct flights from MCO. Turkey isn’t really European Coutnry. But technically Istanbul Airport lies in Europe.
Charlotte??? Good luck with that.
Yeah, that one's just weird. While neither would seem too promising, I'm surprised they'd rather go there than Vegas.
I wonder if LAS and PHX are too hot to be run without payload restrictions in the summer? IST is some 1400 miles farther than say Tokyo and about 1800 farther than London. Well within the stated range of an A350, but maybe not in July. I don’t know for sure, just spitballing.
Emirates and Qatar routinely run 16 hour+ flights out of the desert on 777s and A350s, and IST is 1700mi closer to LAS than a flight like DOH-LAX is. With timing and payload adjustments, Turkish can make it work if they wish to.
Really interesting. Outside of MCO, these are some of the biggest hubs in the US. And these are non Star Alliance hubs.
Turkish does seems to have been quite successful at non Star Alliance hubs though. They do SEA, DFW, and ATL quite successfully. DTW is different because of the high Muslim population that would appreciate the connecting traffic to the ME.
Hopefully these won’t be the only routes that the airline should consider. Along with those routes, it should start flying to destinations such as Las Vegas, Tampa and Austin.
Yes on Tampa! MCO had Emirates so TK would be competing against them… TPA is such an underserved market with huge demand to Asia, India and ME!
Rally more of an attack on BA and AF given Americans’s and Delta’s international models ;)
Frankly that's probably why none of the Big 3 have complained like they did about the ME3... it's not like they were selling lucrative tickets to Ashgabat or Zanzibar ;)
As a PHL flyer, I'm excited by any new, non-AA international route.
We'll probably never have the diversity of international airlines that an airport like BOS enjoys, but this is great news.
I’m a PHL flyer as well and I agreed this is very exciting news. Also heard rumor Etihad is looking to start PHL service as well.
It’s quite puzzling no other International carriers have focused on PHL so I’m happy to see Turkish/Ethiad interest. I thought once Qatar left PHL it would nose dive. Glad to hear it’s still flying on AA and doing well.
Someone please explain why Vegas is a better option than CLT. Charlotte’s metro is one million larger and CLT growing faster and has fast growing Asian pop. Many flying to Vegas are for leisure travel. How does that translate to in’t travel. No other airports near Vegas but CLT has four competitive mid sized airports within 2 hours .
To illustrate my point further. Denver’s metro population is 3.1 million compared to Charlotte’s 2.8 million. Charlotte has a larger Asian population. Why do many more passengers originate in Denver than Charlotte? I stated earlier that there are 4 mid sized competing airports within 2 hours of CLT but there is actually 5, and 6 within 3 hours, and 8 within 4 hours including ATL. Denver airport has no competition nearby. People in the CLT...
To illustrate my point further. Denver’s metro population is 3.1 million compared to Charlotte’s 2.8 million. Charlotte has a larger Asian population. Why do many more passengers originate in Denver than Charlotte? I stated earlier that there are 4 mid sized competing airports within 2 hours of CLT but there is actually 5, and 6 within 3 hours, and 8 within 4 hours including ATL. Denver airport has no competition nearby. People in the CLT region are always looking for the cheapest deal and are willing to drive to save. And CLT airport is rather expensive.