On May 2, Turkish Airlines introduced three times weekly flights to Vancouver from Istanbul, Turkey. Vancouver is now the 14th destination serviced by Turkish Airlines in North America.
Established in 1933 with a fleet of five aircraft, Star Alliance member Turkish Airlines has a fleet of 362 aircraft (passenger and cargo) flying to 319 worldwide destinations.
The decision to launch the new Vancouver service was an investment in Canada that was several years in the making and required significant planning.
“Launching in a pandemic is not what any airline would choose, but we are committed to supporting important cargo travel and the people who are desperate to reach loved ones who need them urgently,” according to an official statement from Turkish Airlines.
In 2021, Turkish Airlines attained Diamond certification status by the Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX) Health Safety, which sets the industry standard for customer-centric COVID-19 certification. This includes achieving the highest standards of cleanliness and sanitization in 10 categories and 75 contact points, including contactless check-in processes, social distance application, extra cleaning measures, hygiene experts and hygiene kits.
The Vancouver market will be serviced using a Boeing 787-900 Dreamliner with 30 Business and 270 Economy seats capacity. Introductory round-trip ticket fares from Vancouver to Istanbul will start at $1,448 CAD with taxes included.
The total flight duration from Vancouver to Istanbul is 12 hours, 28 minutes, with flights occurring on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.
Currently, any person over the age of five, flying from anywhere in the world to Canada is mandated to prove a negative COVID-19 test result taken within 72 hours of departure. Turkish Airlines requires this negative test result be presented upon check-in and again before boarding the flight.
