Turkish Airlines may delay delivery of Airbus, Boeing planes

Turkish Airlines, which halted its passenger flights as a result of the coronavirus crisis, may delay the delivery of some Boeing and Airbus planes, its chairman said on May 27.

Turkey's flag carrier company had received half of its orders for 25 Boeing 787-9 planes, but the delivery of the rest could be delayed, İlker Aycı told daily Hürriyet.

The airline is in talks to take the delivery of Airbus 350-900s that are ready from an order of 25, and that it was working to delay the delivery of the rest, he said.

"We are trying to lighten the serious burdens that could arise. We are getting our narrow-body planes," said Aycı.

On the other hand, the parent company Turkish Cargo has risen to fifth place in the world, he recalled, leaving the door open to buy new cargo planes.

 Flights to resume

Turkish Airlines is planning to begin some domestic flights on June 4 and some international flights on June 10.
Aycı hinted that the flight tickets could be much more expensive in the coming period.

"Now, even the maximum price in [inter-city] bus travels is fixed to 500 Turkish Liras [$73.8]. It was determined as 450 liras [$66.4] in a one-way domestic flight in October 2019. Flying with such a price would deteriorate a company's health," he said.

Turkish Airlines would no longer offer free in-flight food and drinks on domestic flights and other flights shorter than two hours, according to Aycı's remarks.

The impact of the coronavirus could last up to five years and that it would take a while to reach 2019 load factor levels, he added, regarding a practice of leaving middle seats empty as "inapplicable and unsustainable." 

"Flying with occupancy rates between 60 and 66 would seriously...