Turkish Airlines will increase its service to Panama City two months after launching nonstop service between Istanbul Airport and Tocumen International Airport.
Istanbul to Panama
Turkish Airlines launched its IST-PTY flights in October with Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners capable of carrying 300 passengers. Airbus A350-900s will begin flying on the route from March onwards. By swapping aircraft types, the airline will increase its seat capacity, despite not drastically increasing the number of flights between Turkey and Panama.
Turkish offered 3,900 seats in November last year with its 787-9s, flying 13 times to PTY. Turkish offered two fewer flights this month in December, resulting in a 600-seat decrease in that number. Turkey will offer 4,200 seats to Panama this month.
Cirium’s Diio Mi airline schedule tool indicates Turkish will add its A350s to its Panama City route in March, but that aircraft will be deployed solely starting in April. With 29 more seats than its 787-9s, Turkish’s A350s will reach their peak seat offering between April and June. A total of 3,658 seats will be available between its two widebodies in March, and 4,277 seats will be available by April.
Summer 2023: Turkish Airlines’ Latin America operations
During the summer, Turkish will fly from Istanbul to Bogota, Caracas, Mexico City, Panama, and Sao Paulo. The airline also offers a fifth freedom route between Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo.
With 306 flights between April and August, the Boeing 777-300ER is Turkish’s most deployed aircraft to Latin America. In April and August, Turkish Airlines will offer 764 flights to Latin America, followed by the A350 with 283 flights and the 787-9 with 175 flights.
Bogota and Mexico City are Turkish Airlines’ busiest Latin American destinations. So Paulo also sees daily service, but has 600 fewer seats than Colombia and Mexico.
Increasing Istanbul-Italy services
Last week, Turkish Airlines unveiled a new European destination, Palermo. Beginning on May 5th, they’ll fly four times a week to the capital of Sicily. Now Turkish will fly to eight Italian cities this summer, and Italy will be the second-most European country by the carrier. Of those eight cities, Bologna will have 18 weekly flights from Istanbul–six more than Naples! Turkey is using a mix of widebodies and narrowbodies for the routes including A321s and 737-800s.