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Route news: BA drops three European destinations, Turkish Airlines adds Stansted

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Airline route news in brief:

British Airways tweaks its European network

British Airways has made three changes to its European network for the winter flying season, which starts when the clocks go back in October.

  • Flights from Heathrow to Grenoble in France have been removed from sale
  • Flights to Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen – the ‘other’ Istanbul airport – will terminate at the end of the summer season. Whilst nowhere near as smart as the new airport, I did find Sabiha Gokcen very convenient when I used it last year
  • Flights to Zagreb have been removed from sale for the winter season, with the route becoming ‘summer only’. Croatia Airlines will continue to operate the route from Heathrow.

Hat-tip to @SeanM1997 on X.

Istanbul flight changes

Turkish Airlines to start flights from London Stansted

In some ways, Turkish Airlines flies under the radar as a major hub airline. Ask people to name the airline which flies to most countries in the world and I suspect most would say Emirates. Very few would go for Turkish Airlines, which is the correct answer.

The scale of the Turkish Airlines operation from the UK is also under appreciated. This is probably because it mainly operates with short haul aircraft which have a lower PR profile than, say, an Emirates A380.

Turkish Airlines has just announced 14 weekly flights from London Stansted to Istanbul, starting on 18th March 2026.

Turkish will now operate from six UK airports – Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh – plus Dublin.

The total number of weekly UK flights to Istanbul will jump to 170.

However …. there is a tweak to the story which was not in the Turkish Airlines press release. AJet,  formerly AnadoluJet, is a low cost Turkish airline which is owned by Turkish Airlines. AJet currently flies from Stansted to Sabiha Gokcen, Istanbul’s second airport. It looks as if these flights are being discontinued from the end of March 2026.

If AJet is pulling out, the move by Turkish Airlines to launch Stansted – whilst genuinely improving services to the ‘new’ Istanbul airport and maximising connection opportunities for UK passengers – will not be increasing overall capacity between the two countries.

You can check pricing and schedules on the Turkish Airlines website here.

Comments (63)

  • Lumma says:

    Sabiha Gökçen isn’t the old Istanbul airport. It’s the second airport on the Asian side of the city

    • TimM says:

      Agreed. The old IST has for all intents and purposes now closed and the new IST airport, planned to be the largest in the World, has taken over its code. Sabiha Gokcen was always the ‘low cost’ airport on the ‘wrong side’ of the Bosphorus – both airports are now around an hour from central Istanbul. The old IST was just 20 minutes away.

    • TimM says:

      This runs in to the earlier ‘hub-spoke’ discussion. Why place a hub airport anywhere when its location is irrelevant?

      I would change at Istanbul for Antalya or Gazipasa. Having to change at London Heathrow and Istanbul for what is regarded as a short-haul destination, when it takes twice as long that to fly from Manchester to New York but in cramped conditions, is a call too far for the hub-spoke legacy operators.

      • Rhys says:

        …but there are plenty of hubs you WOULD fly through, when going from Manchester to New York. London, Paris, Amsterdam might be options, or even hubs at the other end say, DC or Boston etc. Thousands of people connect through hubs every day rather than fly direct because it’s cheaper.

    • chris w says:

      Ataturk is the old Istanbul airport not Sabiha Gökçen

  • Phillip says:

    Anyone taking on TK’s own Millionnaire challenge?

    • Nico says:

      Thinking about it, you?

      • Phillip says:

        Definitely thinking about it but I have to admit, nowhere near as exciting as the SAS one, from the point of view of trying different products and different airlines.

      • Phillip says:

        Definitely thinking about it but I have to admit, nowhere near as exciting as the SAS one, from the point of view of trying different products and different airlines. The expiry rules for the miles also leave me a little cold, and a slight distrust that TK could pull it ahead of the current deadline not helping either.

        • Nico says:

          Seems to be a lot of distrust on FT. Feels like miles can be converted to shopping vouchers worst case. guess it is one for late August/September given summer flight prices, so can monitor for a bit.

    • Throwawayname says:

      The beauty of the SAS challenge was twofold in trying multiple airlines and hubs as well as being able to optimise the flight plan in line with one’s priorities (e.g. I wanted to minimise time in long-haul Y and in the PRC, others have been able to build different itineraries based on their own preferences). Travelling for 19 hours or whatever in Y on the kangaroo route and then needing to find a way back to civili…I mean Europe, isn’t my idea of fun!

    • vosizneiz says:

      I wonder why Rob has decided not to cover it? (yet)

    • Michael Jennings says:

      Has Barry been signed up?

  • TheFink says:

    I think you ought to quickly add Stansted to your list of 6 UK airports (only 5 in the list) before people assume you’re trying to say Dublin is part of the UK…

  • Ivan says:

    Grenoble is still on sale from Gatwick.

  • CamFlyer says:

    I will welcome TK mainline to IST from STN. I expect they have watched Emirates do very well eastbound from STN. The connections via IST opens up numerous optiona not served by AJet, particularly long haul; AJet tended to compete head to head with Pegasus.

  • Matt says:

    On BA – Has anyone else noticed or had the experience that BA avios bookings have been broken for several days – you go through the process it even creates a flight number confirm number for you in your bookings, but you never get the email and the flight never exists

    • Rob says:

      BA is switching to an entirely new pricing system – the old ‘pricing based on which country’s ticketing system tickets you’ system is going. They tried to roll it out overnight last week and it failed. They are trying again today.

      This does mean, however, that – for example – the days of booking Club Europe flights via certain Australian OTAs for a fraction of the UK price should end (albeit these OTAs were in theory but not in practice banned from selling to non-Australian residents).

      • tony says:

        Ah is that how I would randomly see an OTA selling LCY-EDI for £100 vs BA at £150?

        Apply price match and job’s a good ‘un…. Oh well, was fun while it lasted.

      • KS says:

        If the new pricing system has impacted Avios bookings, do we expect it to have some longer term impact on redemption ‘pricing’?

        • John Gallagher says:

          It also looks like it has affected cash tickets for today and tomorrow. The lowest fare bucket(s) seem to have disappeared from domestic routes to London (not checked other routes)

      • Pat says:

        You can still ticket in the PCC you wish, but availability will match the POC.
        Therefore it’s no issue to ticket on the US market for a domestic trip, it just will have the same availability as the POC.
        The “trick” allowed you to use another PCC’s availability to obtain fares from a POC where they didn’t have availability in a particular RBD.
        Lufthansa changed this maybe a decade ago.

    • Rich says:

      There’s a reference to this at the top of the BA app.

  • Mrs Trellis says:

    Turkish Airlines fly to the most countries in the world, but not the most cities.

  • ClubSmed says:

    Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen isn’t in Europe, so technically not really a European destination, even if half the city it serves is in Europe

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