Dubai-based narrowbody airline flydubai is increasing its connectivity with the city of Istanbul. From March 2nd, the airline will resume flights to the city’s secondary Sabiha Gökçen Airport (SAW). With the existing flights to Istanbul Airport (IST), the airline will offer 12 weekly flights to the city.
While Omicron may have created a hiccup for flydubai, it has been showing a strong recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic. In November, the airline’s CEO, Ghaith al Ghaith, revealed that the airline had already made a full recovery from the pandemic. Of course, some routes remained suspended, meaning the surplus had been made up by new routes and increased frequencies on existing routes.
On Tuesday, flydubai revealed that it will re-add a second Istanbul airport to its route network. From March 2nd, the airline will fly to Sabiha Gökçen Airport (SAW) five times a week, alongside an existing daily service to the city’s main airport.
flydubai will directly compete with Pegasus and Turkish Airlines between Dubai and Sabiha Gökçen Airport. Pegasus Airlines has 43 A321 rotations planned on the route in March, according to schedule data from Cirium. Meanwhile, Turkish Airlines has 24 Boeing 737-800 rotations planned.
There is much more competition when you also take the route from Dubai to Istanbul’s main airport into account. There are 399 rotations planned on the DXB-IST route in March. flydubai accounts for 63 of these services with the Boeing 737 MAX. Its partner airline, Emirates, offers some fairly heavy competition on the route. The airline has a twice-daily A380 flight to Istanbul Airport each day in March. This is accompanied by 88 Boeing 777 services across the month.
Finally, Turkish Airlines also has many services planned on the route. According to Cirium, the airline has 186 rotations planned on the route. While the 737-800 is scheduled for Sabiha Gökçen Airport, heavier aircraft fly from the main Istanbul Airport. Ten services are scheduled with each of the A330-300 and the A350-900. The remaining 168 rotations are allocated to the Boeing 777-300ER.
flydubai will be using the Boeing 737 MAX for all 12 weekly flights to Istanbul. Passengers on the MAX will be able to experience a lie-flat bed in business class, while RECARO seats in the economy cabin are designed to optimize space and comfort in flight.
In November last year, al Ghaith revealed that he was delighted with the 737 MAX, commenting, “We find [the MAX] very good… There were no issues as all… In my humble opinion, because this aircraft is actually the most scrutinized airplane ever, I think that people have that in the back of their minds. Maybe that helped get this over the line because people are comfortable on the MAX.”
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