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Where Has Turkish Airlines Been Flying Its Airbus A350s With Aeroflot Cabins This Month?

The four ex-Aeroflot Airbus A350s have been operating a mix of intercontinental and regional routes from the airline’s Istanbul hub.

Last summer, Turkish Airlines took delivery of four Airbus A350-900s that were originally destined for Aeroflot. With sanctions preventing the aircraft from joining the Russian flag carrier’s fleet, they instead found a new home with Turkish Airlines.

Turkish Airlines welcomed the first two aircraft in July 2022 (TC-LGI and TC-LGJ), with the other two (TC-LGK and TC-LGL) joining its fleet one month later. All four of the aircraft are equipped with Trent XWB engines, and when they arrived at Turkish Airlines, the Airbus A350-900s sported a unique hybrid livery. One of the aircraft (TC-LGL) has since been repainted with the full Turkish Airlines livery.

All four aircraft still sport Aeroflot’s original 316-passenger cabin configuration (28 in business class and 288 in economy class). This makes them unique in Turkish Airlines’ fleet the rest of the carrier’s Airbus A350-900s seat a total of 329 passengers in a two-class configuration 32 in business class and 297 in economy class.

Turkish Airlines has been keeping the aircraft busy. Data from ch-aviation.com shows that since joining the carrier, they have consistently been in the air on average for over 12 hours per day. From its hub at Istanbul Airport (IST), where have Turkish Airlines been sending the aircraft recently?

TC-LGI and TC-LGJ

TC-LGI is 1.46 years old, although the aircraft was only delivered to Turkish Airlines under 12 months ago, in July 2022. Data from FlightRadar24.com shows that in the past week, the aircraft has operated a mix of long-haul and regional flights. It has visited Atlanta, Ho Chi Minh City, Chicago, and Cape Town, alongside shorter flights in the downtime between intercontinental sectors, including to Cairo (CAI) and Berlin (BER).

TC-LGJ also arrived at Turkish Airlines in July 2022 and is slightly younger than the former aircraft, coming in at 1.41 years old. Over the past seven days, the Airbus A350-900 has operated twice to both Singapore and Johannesburg. The Johannesburg routing includes a 50-minute tag-on to Durban. The aircraft has also flown the 1 hr 45 min sector to Tel Aviv and back.
TC-LGK and TC-LGL

Both TC-LGK and TC-LGL were delivered to Turkish Airlines in August 2022, and they are 1.16 and 1.03 years old, respectively. TC-LGK has made three return trips across the Atlantic in the past week, operating to Chicago, Boston and Atlanta. Its shortest flight has been the 58-minute hop from Istanbul to nearby Bucharest.

TC-LGL’s shortest flight in the past seven days has been to Beirut (BEY), while its longest has been to Atlanta at 11 hours and 15 minutes. TC-LGL is the only one of the four ex-Aeroflot Airbus A350-900s to have been fully repainted into Turkish Airlines’ unmistakable white and red livery.

Source
simpleflying

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