I wrote this morning all about the new Turkish Airlines 787 Dreamliner and now I wanted to drill down a bit and show the schedules for the first cities that will be getting the initial six 787 Dreamliners. Plus, there is some award availability in business class on some routes so I wanted to highlight that as well!
Cities and Schedules for the New Turkish Airlines 787
The business class cabin aboard the Boeing 787 Dreamliner
Here is a list with the cities that will be served by the new Turkish Airlines 787 as well as the dates that service first starts. Note: these dates are not provided by Turkish Airlines but were found by me as I went through their schedule. So, some dates may change or may be trial flights so check for sure before flying any of these routes!
| City | Starting Date | Flight # | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bali | July 17 | TK66 | |
| Amsterdam | July 26 | TK1951 | |
| Washington, DC | August 8 | TK7 | |
| Delhi | August 21 | TK716 | August 22 is a A330 |
| New York JFK | August 24 | TK11 | This is sporadic - maybe alternating with Mexico City |
| Mexico City | August 25 | TK181 | |
| Cancun | August 26 | TK181 | Continuation of Mexico City |
| London | September 2 | TK1985 | |
| Dubai | September 2 | TK762 | |
| Atlanta | September 10 | TK 31 | |
| Bogota | September 10 | TK800 | |
| Panama City | September 11 | TK800 | Continuation of Bogota |
| New York JFK | February 10 | TK3 | This appears to be the first regularly scheduled JFK flight |
Business Class Award Availability
The new Turkish Airlines business class aboard the 787 Dreamliner promises to be a great upgrade. Unfortunately, Turkish Airlines goes through phases where they dump award availability out at once for many US cities and then are quite restrictive. With this plane replacing some 777 aircraft that offer 19 more business class seats, you can imagine it may be a bit difficult to get award seats – on some routes!
Here are some of the routes that have some decent award availability.
Istanbul – Mexico City
Let me say this – Istanbul – Mexico City has EXCELLENT award availability right now, including on the inaugural 787 flight to MEX! If you use United miles, it will cost you 75,000 miles one way for business class. The service to Mexico City is not daily. Going Mexico City to Istanbul has nothing available in the next few months.
Istanbul to Mexico City
Istanbul – Bali (DPS)
There is also tremendous availability for Istanbul to Bali, Indonesia! This will cost you 100,000 United miles for the 13 hour flight but is available on many days throughout the early schedule.
Istanbul – Bogota/Panama City
The availability on this route is not great but it is notable because the inaugural 787 flight on this route is available with miles! It will cost 80,000 United miles for this business class flight.
Istanbul – Amsterdam
The availability on this route is also very good, and only at 25,000 United miles. This flight is 3.5 hours long and is the afternoon flight but not a bad option if you want to give this new aircraft a try!
I actually went ahead and booked on the inaugural flight on this route so I can get a sneak peak of what I will enjoy later in September on the long haul. 3.5 hours isn’t great but it is still enough time to give it a nice try!
Istanbul – Atlanta
Istanbul – Atlanta is the best bet for people wanting to travel to the US with the new business class-equipped 787! There are plenty of available dates on this route into the fall and into early next year. With United miles, it will cost you 70,000 (though this is a great place to use Aeroplan since it is just 57,500 – but you will have nominal surcharges if starting in Europe).
Summary
While aircraft availability/maintenance can affect these dates, it is nice to see there are some options for booking the new Turkish Airlines business class cabins! Of course, you can use any miles in the Star Alliance family to book but there will be some fuel surcharges with many (except for United, LifeMiles, and Aeroplan as the major ones).
My guess is that they will have some of their new 787 Dreamliners on the Istanbul to Tokyo routes for next year’s Olympics as well as everyone tries to put their best (travel) foot forward for the biggest athletic event in the world!
Will you be flying on any of these routes soon?
TK66 IST-DPS starts on July 17, not 19.
That’s what their press release says but the schedule doesn’t have it starting until the 19th
I’m booked on the Inaugural flight. So far nothing changed. Still confirmed on July 17.
Thanks and congrats! I will update it!
I booked an award on VIE-IST-ATL over the weekend for early October on Aeroplan, was coming up on United also. I couldn’t find any dates to IAD, but there were a few other days in late September/October that worked to ATL. Granted this wasn’t on a direct booking from IST-ATL, but a wide variety of European gateways worked.
Interesting. I will dig through more of those months to see (I was using United’s calendar which is the best but can be annoying with not showing the right dates as available).
I am doing ATL-IST in September so will miss you by a week or two – the other way!
I found a lot of dates available in January with Aeroplan to ATL.
Thanks, Christian! I just checked again and saw a bunch of dates this fall as well!
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