Turkish Airlines announced last week that it intends to order 20 Airbus A350-900 aircraft with the option of adding five more of the aircraft at a later date.
The A350 XWB is the European manufacturer’s latest widebody aircraft and is capable of long range flight while typically carrying approximately 300 passengers.
Turkey’s national carrier had earlier also comitted to buying 40 of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliners. Both orders indicate the airline wants to keep a mix of aircraft from both manufacturers in its fleet as it charts its aggressive growth plans.
“This order is set to play a key role in our growing business in the years to come,” said the airline’s charman M. İlker Aycı. “The increased business volume for the local Turkish supplier industry [as a result of the order] will [also] be a great gain for the sector.”
The carrier’s CEO, Bilal Eksi, had told Arabian Business in an interview last month, that the airline was constrained in terms of runway capacity at the two airports it currently operates out of in Istanbul.
The imminent completion of Istanbul’s third airport, projected to be the world’s largest airport when completed, will allow the carrier to expand to new destinations with a larger fleet.
“Once this vision is made into reality, the game will be changed,” Eksi said.
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