I just read something on the great Anna.aero site that really interested me. But it also pleased me because it confirmed something I’d noticed without paying too much attention. Turkish Airlines (THY) are on the up – big style!

I’ve been occasionally aware lately of how the airline has been expanding its route network, adding more frequencies and destinations, and upgrading its fleet. I hadn’t even realised that they had another 60 Boeing 737-800s on order – that’s going to be a massive fleet of the type when all are delivered.

It seems that Turkish want to leverage their position to take on the big guns in the Middle East (Emirates, Qatar and Etihad) by turning Istanbul Ataturk Airport into a staging post between East and West, much like we see in Dubai, Doha etc. But whilst the big carriers use mainly larger widebody fleets (especially Emirates), Turkish sees its geographical location as a much better place to operate the smaller Boeing 737-800s from an increasing number of European, Middle Eastern and African destinations, feeding through its Istanbul hub.

“Right now, Turkish serves around 70 cities in Europe, but with over 60 737-800s on order, this will double” promised Dr Temel Kotil, President and CEO Turkish Airlines, in a recent interview with anna.aero.

And to prove the point, Turkish has remained more profitable through the recession, and gone from 10 million passengers per year in 2006, to 30 million today. It will soon take over British Airways as third biggest European carrier.

So it’s probably time to start thinking about what kind of airport Istanbul Ataturk will be for the enthusiast in years to come. Plenty of red tails, for sure. But plenty of action as well.

Flybe Nordic has now started operations from its Helsinki base and has its sights set on dominating the regional market in the Finnish and Baltic market.

It is initially starting 24 routes, two of which will be from the smaller base at Tallinn in Estonia. These routes cover the domestic network in Finland, and routes to Sweden, Norway and Poland (as well as Estonia). More routes are due to be added in December.

The airline has taken over Finncomm Airlines. I believe their existing fleet of ATR aircraft will still be used initially, but ultimately Flybe’s DHC-8-400 aircraft will be taking over.

It will be interesting to see how aggressively they expand and pursue other routes in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, and whether this will have a knock-on effect on other airlines in the area. It will also be interesting to see what effect it has on Helsinki and Tallinn airports in terms of movements and passenger numbers, and whether it has a big impact on Finnair, who have involvement with the airline.

Ryanair surprised a few people today by announcing a new base is to be set up at Karlsruhe Baden-Baden airport in Germany. This will be their 47th base, and their 4th in Germany, but it comes after they made a big fuss about the German government’s imposition of passenger taxes and threatened to pull out many routes.

Ryanair already serve 12 destinations from the airport, so the addition of seven more routes and two dedicated Boeing 737-800 aircraft based there is not going to cause too much to shout about for the spotter. But it is nevertheless good news for the airport, which is currently Germany’s 18th largest.

The new base will take effect from March 2012. The new destinations are: Faro, Malaga, Palma, Riga, Thessaloniki, Vilnius and Zadar.

What do you think of this news?

On 31st October easyJet will finally retire the last two examples of its Boeing 737 fleet.

The airline was one of the first low-cost carriers in Europe to take on the model of Southwest Airlines in the USA. This model was based around a single-fleet of Boeing 737 aircraft, and was adopted by other airlines such as Ryanair.

easyJet started with leased 737-200 models in 1995, but later acquired -300s (including those of carrier Go Fly, which it acquired in 2002) and then Next Generation -700s.

However, the 737 is no longer the only cheap and efficient short-to-medium haul airliner on the market in this seat category. Today, the Airbus A319/20/21 is just as good. In the early 2000s, easyJet started ordering the A319 model in large numbers, and we saw the Boeing 737s being retired.

Recently only a few have been left in service, flying from the airline’s London Luton base. Now they are to disappear.

It remains to be seen whether easyJet will revert in the future to another order for a Boeing product, such as the re-engined 737MAX. Their A319 deliveries have now been completed.

I personally have flown on many of the airline’s 737 flights around Europe and personally thought the livery looked very good on them. It is sad to see them go!

And the 43rd Ryanair base will be….  Wroclaw, Poland!

The airline already flies 15 routes from Wroclaw, but made the announcement yesterday that it will be basing a Boeing 737-800 aircraft at the airport from Summer 2012, and also opening 6 new routes.

These are:
- Bournemouth, UK
- Chania, Crete
- Malmö, Sweden
- Malta
- Paris Beauvais, France
- Venice Treviso, Italy

These days we’re down to just one passenger airline operating the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 on scheduled services, and that’s KLM. World Airways also have some in passenger configuration, but these are only used for charter work, and usually carry troops.

I’ve had the fortune to fly on the type twice as a passenger – once with American Airlines in 1995 from JFK-LHR, and once with KLM in 2007 from SFO-AMS. Like it’s older brother, the DC-10, I found the MD-11 very spacious and comfortable to travel on.

KLM are likely to operate the type for another another few years. They operate 10 of them currently, and have announced the following routes by the MD-11 from their Amsterdam Schiphol base this winter:

Havana, Cuba
Montreal, Canada
Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
San Franciso, USA
Tehran, Iran

Next Summer, some additional routes include:
Aruba
Bonaire
Curacao
Delhi, India
Los Angeles, USA (1 of the 3 daily flights)
Panama City
Vancouver, Canada

In addition to passenger operators, a large number of cargo examples are still flying. The largest numbers can be found with:

EVA Air Cargo (Taipei)
FedEx Express (Memphic, Paris CDG, Tokyo)
Lufthansa Cargo (Frankfurt)
UPS (Louisville, Cologne/Bonn)

What are your memories of the type – did you fly it?

With the planned entry to service of ANA (and the world’s) first Boeing 787 aircraft, they have now announced details of what routes the aircraft will fly on initially. Here’s some details (thanks to the excellent Airlineroute.net blog):

The first commercial route will be a charter from Tokyo Narita to Hong Kong on 26 October 2011, returning on 27 October.

Scheduled domestic services will start between Tokyo Haneda and Okayama on 1 November, followed by Haneda to Hiroshima.

Scheduled international services will be flown between Tokyo Haneda – Beijing 1x weekly from December 2011, and Tokyo Haneda – Frankfurt 3x weekly from January 2012 (daily from February 2012).

So it seems Haneda is initially the place to go and see the aircraft, but European spotters will be delighted at the regular services into Frankfurt from early next year. This flight will arrive around 0525 and depart 1115 each morning.

TNT Airways have handily made their full flight timetable available to download online.

This is obviously handy if you run a business and need to plan your logistics, but for us spotters it’s an incredibly useful insight into the operations of a cargo airline. Many of you will know how frustratingly hard it is to find out regular cargo timetables, so take this and enjoy!

The TNT timetable includes routes, days, times and aircraft types.

You can download the timetable from this link: http://www.tntliege.com/FlightSchedule.html
Photo via Duch.seb at Wikipedia

STOP PRESS! Boeing are sending one of their 787 aircraft to the UK in September, visiting two airports.

The airliner will arrive at Manchester Airport direct from Seattle on the morning of 3rd September, where it will be shown to existing customers Monarch Airlines and ThomsonFly.

Then, on 4th September it will be flown to London Heathrow airport. I believe this is in order to demonstrate the aircraft to British Airways, but please comment if this isn’t the case.

Well I’ll be heading to Manchester to catch this I think. Anyone else going? I’ve heard it will be one of the machines painted in ANA livery.

easyJet have joined Aer Arann in showing confidence in the newly revamped London Southend Airport by committing to base three aircraft there.

The new base will open in April 2012 to coincide with the new terminal building opening at the airport, and is set to raise the profile of the airport in time for the London 2012 Olympics, since it is actually the closest airport to the site of the games.

Controversially, easyJet will be moving three aircraft from nearby London Stansted to take up the base at Southend, thus reducing capacity at the larger airport.

Initial destinations from Southend are: Amsterdam, Belfast, Berlin, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Madrid and Milan. Here’s a press release about the news.