Turkish Airlines (TK, Istanbul Airport) has taken delivery of its first of ten B737-9s on order from Boeing (BOE, Washington National). TC-LYA (msn 60062) was ferried from Seattle Boeing Field to Istanbul Atatürk via Goose Bay and Reykjavik Keflavik over the course of March 1/2.
The jet has since been deployed into service on crew-training flights from Istanbul Atatürk to Izmir Adnan Menderes and Ankara Esenboga. However, effective March 31, Routes Online shows the MAX 9 will be used to operate the following routes out of Istanbul Atatürk:
- Bishkek (effective 31 March, 1x daily);
- Dublin International (effective 31 March, 1x daily);
- Muscat (effective 31 March, 1x daily);
- Basel/Mulhouse/Freiburg, CH (effective 01 April, 1x daily);
- Sharm el Sheikh (effective 29 April, 1x daily);
- Malta International (effective 29 April, 1x daily);
- Birmingham, GB (effective 27 May, 1x daily);
- Tbilisi (effective 27 May, 1x daily);
- Odesa (effective 29 May, 4x weekly);
- Kazan International (effective 24 June, 1x daily);
- Thessaloniki (effective 25 June, 6x weekly);
- Cologne/Bonn (24 June – 22 July, 1x weekly);
Turkish Airlines is expecting five MAX 9s to deliver this year followed by five more next year. It already operates eleven out of sixty-five B737-8s on order from Boeing.
