European Carrier Turkish Airlines delay Australian routes.
 

Turkish Airlines (THY) has delayed plans to launch Istanbul Ataturk- Australia services because of the Qantas (QF) -Emirates (EK) tie-up.

THY CEO Temel Kotil told ATW, the carrier has “less of an appetite” to operate to Australia because of the QF-EK link. “Because they (QF/EK) will feed Europe, we pushed [the plan] a bit backward,” Kotil said, without giving details on a new timeline.

Kotil said the QF/EK deal was expected “because it is natural they are working together” (ATW Daily News, Sept. 6).

Kotil said THY will stay with Star Alliance and sees no need to have closer ties to one of the Gulf Carriers to Australia.

“No. We want to cooperate with someone far away [an airline based in the Far East],” Kotil said. “We support our alliance members. But we will [enter into] a cooperation with others [non-members] if we don’t have a conflict [with the alliance].”

THY don't have any spare wide-body capacity at the moment, but with the recent order for 15 x 777s & 5 options, which are due to start arriving here in 2014, I'm sure that Australia as a destination will be looked at seriously again, they were granted route approval for 5 services a week back in early 2010, but the current fleet of 12 x 777-300ERs are flat out serving, LAX,JFK,YYZ,GRU,PEK,PVG,HKG,NRT as well as some LHR,CDG,FRA,VIE,DXB,TLV,MED,JED etc.