Turkey's national airline is adjusting its winter schedule in response to the drop in visitor numbers to the country following several attacks in recent months. The reduction programme affects the whole of Europe, including destinations in the French-speaking world. Some of these frequency reductions are due to the switch from summer to winter schedules, with lower demand. Turkish Airlines has set up one of the largest European networks in the region, connecting Istanbul Atatürk International to 142 cities this winter - including 42 airports within Turkey.
France has been particularly hard hit. Bordeaux will disappear from the Turkish Airlines schedules this winter, while reductions in frequencies have been announced at Lyon, Marseille, Nice, Mulhouse/Basle and Toulouse. In the rest of French-speaking Europe, the frequency cuts mainly affect Luxembourg.
The biggest reductions in capacity are reported at Toulouse and Marseille. On the former, the number of weekly frequencies has been reduced from seven to four flights a week, while on the latter it has been halved from 10 to 5 flights a week. On the Istanbul-Toulouse route, Turkish Airlines will be offering 44% fewer seats in November, while seat capacity on the Istanbul-Marseille route will be reduced by 41%. Nice airport has also been affected, with five weekly flights compared with 8 at the same time last year. Capacity to the Côte d'Azur was therefore down by 21%. To Paris, while frequencies remain the same as last year (4 daily flights), capacity is down slightly, at -7%. Yet Paris remains one of the cities best served in Europe by Turkish Airlines, with the largest seat capacity after London and ahead of Brussels, Amsterdam and Berlin.
However, one French destination stood out: Lyon. Despite a reduction of two weekly frequencies (12 flights instead of 14 flights/week), the total number of seats was up very slightly at +1.1%.
In the rest of French-speaking Europe, Geneva recorded a capacity increase of 12% and three daily flights, while Brussels-Istanbul saw a slight increase in capacity (1.3%). This increase contrasts with the sharp contraction in capacity on Istanbul-Luxembourg (-28.9%) and on Basel/Mulhouse (-17.4%).
Finally, on the international front, Turkish Airlines is reducing the number of its frequencies to Ashkabad, Baku, Guangzhou, Dammam, Doha, Kuwait, Kuala Lumpur, Osaka, Seoul and Taipei, among others.
