Turkish Airlines to Expand in Japanese Market

Posted 13/07/2011

Turkish Airlines (THY) is planning to introduce daily flights during the Northern Summer 2012 schedules to both Osaka Kansai and Tokyo Narita as it attempts to boost its share of the Europe – Japan market.  As part of its ambitious plans to become one of the world’s largest network carriers, THY is working to boost its point-to-point and transfer traffic via its Istanbul Ataturk hub.

It currently offers five flights per week to Osaka Kansai and six a week to Tokyo Narita but plans to have a daily schedule in place on each route from March 25, 2012.  The Osaka Kansai route will be operated by an Airbus A330-200, while Tokyo Narita will be linked by a Boeing 777-300ER. 

THY currently carries an estimated 142,000 O&D passengers a year on these two routes – 43,000 between Istanbul and Osaska Kansai and 99,000 between Istanbul and Tokyo Narita – but a further 70,000 passengers use its flights to connect with other destinations in Turkey and Europe.  Its three largest destinations outside of the country are Rome Fiumicino, Paris CDG and Athens International, each with strong passenger flows.  Looking at traffic flows between Europe and Japan, THY accounted for 3.8 per cent of passengers ranking it in sixth place among European operators and eighth overall.

Schedule:

Istanbul – Osaka Kansai
TK046 IST2350 – 1655+1KIX 332 D
TK047 KIX2230 – 0535+1IST 332 D

Istanbul – Tokyo Narita
TK050 IST1655 – 1010+1NRT 77W D
TK051 NRT1200 – 1805IST 77W D

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PLEASE NOTE: From March 7, 2012 schedule data for all news stories has been extracted from OAG Schedules iNET; All GDS data is based on a live GDS update on the day of publication; Traffic data extracted from IATA BSP system for the year ending December 2011.  All information is subject to change.