Turkish Airlines parks 30 planes as demand decreases amid economic slowdown, security concerns

Tolga Özbek - Doğan News Agency/ISTANBUL

Turkey’s flagship carrier Turkish Airlines (THY) has put a total of 30 planes in its fleet into parking positions due to a decreasing number of passengers amid economic contractions and recent terror attacks.

Some 12 rented Airbus A330-200 model planes were transferred to the southern resort province of Antalya and parked in front of the second international terminal.

Another four Airbus A320 planes, meanwhile, were parked outside the general aviation hangars at Ankara’s Esenboğa Airport.

The number of withdrawn planes will gradually reach 30 in the coming days.

The carrier currently has 298 passenger planes in its fleet.

In the aviation industry, planes are parked for a rate called Aircraft Utilization, which is calculated by dividing the aircraft block hours by the number of aircraft days assigned to service on air carrier routes. Accordingly, the redundant planes are parked in airports with no parking position issues during the crisis period. During this period, the aircraft are subject to periodic maintenance and other overdue processes, such as cabin modification.

In addition, Turkish Airlines also canceled flights to a total of 22 destinations, 17 of which were international, due to decreasing demand.

Among the canceled international destinations were Batna and Tlemcen in Algeria, Alborg in Denmark, Bordeaux in France, Karlsruhe-Baden, Freidrichshafen and Münster in Germany, Kermanshah in Iran, Genoa and Pisa in Italy, Aqaba in Jordan, Osh in Kyrgyzstan, Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Kano in Nigeria, al-Qassim in Saudi Arabia, Khujand in Tajikistan and Ivano-Frankivsk in Ukranie.

The carrier also canceled domestic flights to Eskişehir, Tokat, Edremit, Uşak and Siirt, in a move to lower costs in the winter season, which began on Oct. 30.