Star Alliance

Shares in Turkish Airlines (THY) have soared after the airline posted a 398.2 million Turkish Lira net profit in the second quarter – 177 percent up from same period last year – due to passenger growth and currency rate exchanges.

A Turkish Airlines passenger jet performed an emergency landing at the Sofia Airport on Saturday, officials say.

After the aircraft was at the airport at about 19:00 EEST (17:00 GMT), all people on board were asked to leave it and were led to a safe location, and a laptop with an unknown owner was seized.

Portuguese flag carrier TAP Air pilots are staging a 24-hour strike over work conditions, causing the cancellation of flights on Saturday.

The state-owned airline has canceled 36 of the 350 flights that were originally scheduled for Saturday, disrupting operations during the peak summer holiday period.

Turkish Airlines canceled dozens of flights on the morning of Aug. 8 following a heavy storm with torrential rains in Istanbul and its environs that had disrupted air traffic a day earlier.

The flights were canceled due to operational reasons, airline officials said, as thousands of passengers faced long waits at both Atatürk and Sabiha Gökçen airports.

Lufthansa Airlines are excited by the possibility using Istanbul’s third airport once constructed, a regional Lufthansa director in charge of Turkish business affairs has said.

One of the 298 people who were killed in the Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 crash in eastern Ukraine took a photo of the plane at the Schiphol airport and posted it on Facebook. 

Ironically, his comment was “Should it vanish, this is what it looks like”, referring to the recent accident with another Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777, which disappeared mysteriously over the Indian Ocean.

The Malaysian airliner apparently shot down over rebel-held eastern Ukraine was flying over airspace that a number of other Asian carriers had already abandoned months ago because of security concerns.
      

Turkish Airlines CEO Temel Kotil has been prized for “his role in the transformation of Turkey’s flagship carrier,” receiving the 2014 Airline Strategy Award for Executive Leadership during a fanfare ceremony in London.

An airplane of the Bulgarian airline AirVia performing a flight between Varna and Leipzig landed short while approaching the runway at Leipzig, reports the Aeroinside.com website. 

U.S. aerospace giant Boeing and Turkish Airlines on June 16 finalized an order for 15 additional 737 MAX 8s, valued at $1.6 billion at list prices, the companies said.

The deal stemmed from the Turkish flag carrier's biggest Boeing order in its history, in May 2013, for 70 single-aisle 737s, Boeing best-selling airplane.