Article: Why Turkish Airlines is heavily investing in Boeing 777-300ERs?

Why Turkish Airlines is heavily investing in Boeing 777-300ERs?

Turkish Airline has recently shown a great interest on Boeing 777-300 ERs but what has made them to be so interested in this model and how their experience began with this aircraft. And furthermore, what are the main triggers makes them believe in this model? I am going to analyses the narratives behind it.

The Boeing 777-300 ER, extended range version of Boeing's one of most successful aircraft in its history. It is also called as 773. Boeing has been also working on the final details of the improved version of the model called as Boeing 777x, next generation version of 773.

In the previous article, we have uncovered that the Boeing 773 is mostly (almost 70%) are demanded by Middle East countries. Turkey is not part of Middle East, it is part of Eastern Europe but has the similar geographic triggers with the ME countries. There were plenty of reason why is countries have been investing on this model but now we are going to deep into Turkish Airlines' interest and the relationship with model so far and their future plans on it.

As of 12 of April, 2016, Turkish Airlines has 32 orders on this model and 25 of them has been delivered so far. Turkish Carrier preferred GE90 engines which is most suitable for the model. Additionally, the airline has decided to lease 3 aircraft from Kenya Airways and 1 from Celestial Aviation.

Turkey's biggest national airlines' relationship with the 773 began with the wet lease experience from the Indian Carrier Jet Airways. For the time 4 airplanes were leased with their experienced crew. The Turkish flag carrier gave them special series beginning with from TC-JJA to TC-JJD. This is the first meeting with the model and it was the "love at first glance"!

The airline used this model in very tight schedules and mostly used in "prestige routes" such as Tokyo/Narita, New York, Washington, London, Paris and Sao Paulo. After experience,

The twin engine jet was the correct answer for the airline. But what made the carrier to focus on this model? Here are some facts behind this investment.

1) Renewing the fleet:

Turkish Airlines has been using Airbus A340-300s in their international routes for more than 20 years. Until 2 years the airline had more than 20 A343s but now the amount is only 4. The airline has replaced the A343s with brand new B777s and A330s, accordingly fleet age average has dramatically decreased.

2) Fuel Efficiency:

As known, Airbus A343s are one of best aircraft has been serving many years with high safety and profitability awards. However, the aircraft has 4 engines which is not comparative enough any more. Therefore, the airlines has been forced to focus on fuel efficiency and environmentally friendly models. Accordingly, it was time for Turkish Airlines to say good bye to the A343s. As of today, the reaming 4 A343s has been decided to be pulled out from the scheduled services and to be used in charter services such as Medine (Hadj) and famous touristic destinations. 

 3) Profitability:

In addition to the fuel efficiency, the B777s has also contributed the profitability of the Turkish flag carrier's profitability in a positive way. The Boeing 777-300ERs have more capacity than A343s which meets the recent demand of the Airline. 

The airlines has generally more than 300 passengers on average request for its most long haul flights. However, the capacity is barely is more than 400. Therefore, the only answers for the Airline for this capacity were B773 and A333.  When the Airline tried 4 B777s from the Jet Airways found out that passenger capacity increased to 400 passenger for on international routes where they placed B777s with A340s.

 

Accordingly, the carrier did not hesitate to invest on B773s for future investments and enjoyed having a full capacity on the more than 10 hours routes. Then the question is if Turkish Airlines tries Boeing B748i or Airbus A380, then the capacity would increase? This is the hot topic discussion in Turkey aviation worlds and also inside the Turkish Airlines Executive Community. However, the bigger airplanes do not seem efficient for the airline at least for now.

4) Passenger Profile:

 The airline first started using B777s on the longest ranges such as Tokyo, Sao Paulo, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Hong Kong and etc and flied with full capacity. Then after having the new aircrafts, all north and south America routes were placed with mostly B777. Currently, in Asia routes which also has the full capacity such as China, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore has also been replaced with B777s.

Since these are mostly more than 10 hours flights, passenger are mostly like to use to thee economy premium, the first and business classes. B777 is probably the best answer for this question when taken into account its easy convertible cabin design. Furthermore, as known, B777s has more leg rooms and head-up baggage capacity than its nearest competitor.

 

5) Increased Cargo Capacity: 

In addition to Turkish Airlines' cargo fleet consisting of 10 cargo airplanes (7 A332F and 3 A310 Cargo), wide body aircraft helps its cargo capacity to take off. Accordingly, Turkish Airlines has almost doubled its cargo capacity in 2 years from 465 tones to 775 tonnes. B777s has really was the key factors for increasing the cargo capacity since it has the largest cargo capacity among the twin engines jets. 

Another factor is that when the airline opens new routes, in fact does not worry too much because the management knows there is a cargo carrier demand on the route. Thus, cargo option makes the airlines recent expansion around the world which has made it the airline that flies the most countries around the world!

  

6) Geographic Advantages:

 Turkish flag carrier's main hub is Istanbul, Turkey which itself has almost 20 million population. Turkey's population is almost 75 million and mostly young people. In addition to this, Istanbul is the business and touristic center in the region which attract millions of passengers every year. 

Furthermore, Turkey is in the middle of the world! Istanbul ties 2 continents Asia and Europe. Therefore, many transit passengers use Turkish Airlines for transit. 

The airline has been using this advantage and investing on Boeing 777s to meet the increasing demand in the region.  

Result : Turkish Airline has been enjoying almost 30 Boeing 777s for the moments and there are many others in order as well. Since we are getting to the busy season we almost every week hear that Turkish Airlines has made an agreement to lease another Boeing 777s. It seems the Airline is very happy with the model and will keep investing on it.

We have analyzed the reasons behind it. Of course it is very easy to increase the triggers but what it is sure the flag carrier has made a good decision with investing on this model. Still does not have any order on B777x but it is just matter of time to happen.

Thank you for reading!