While a number of airlines have completely shut down already, Turkish Airlines has had some scheduled operations still going. However, with the continued spread and worsening situation associated with COVID-19, the airline has shut down all of its regular international and domestic operations.
The latest update
According to the special COVID-19 page set up on the airline’s website, all flights have been suspended as of midnight of Saturday, April 4th. This decision was made, ’’ in accordance with the decisions taken by the authorities of the Republic of Turkey and to protect the public health from novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic” the airline states.
In fact, all of Turkish Airlines’ international flights have been suspended since March 28th. This latest change is with regard to its domestic operations. Looking forward, the airline plans to resume its domestic flights in two weeks, on April 20th. On the international side, flights are suspended until May 1st.
Of course, the dates set for resuming operations are aspirational goals and the airline must abide by the government’s decisions. The government will hopefully make its decisions based on the advice of health experts properly assessing the risks and acceptable levels of safety.
Some operations continue with Turkish Airlines
Like many other airlines, even though regularly scheduled passenger operations are suspended, the airline has other activities that are ongoing. The main two are repatriation flights and cargo operations.
On April 2nd Turkish Airlines flew to Kuwait to repatriate its citizens living and working in Kuwait as labourers. This flight had 211 passengers. On this day, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Turkey had brought more than 20,000 citizens from 50 countries as part of measures against the virus. He added that some 10,000 others would soon be repatriated.
On the cargo side of things, Turkish Airlines’ cargo division, Turkish Cargo, has planned 155 weekly flights for cargo freighters and 60 weekly flights for passenger aircraft that are being used for cargo operations. All of these flights will depart from Istanbul this April. For cargo operations, medicine and medical equipment are the highest priority for the airline during loading and unloading. In terms of storage, these goods are secured in a 3500 square meter specialized cargo facility which subdivides into special storage rooms with four different temperature ranges for ideal conditions.
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