Turkish Airlines cancels 18 routes
- Turkish Airlines filed a network overhaul this week that suspends 18 international destinations from May and June 2026, cutting routes across Africa, Europe, Central Asia, Iraq, Jordan and Cuba. - The list includes Billund, Leipzig/Halle and Havana, plus African tag routes such as Monrovia, Bissau, Lusaka, Luanda and Pointe Noire, with several final flights scheduled in May. - The changes extend some cuts through October 24, 2026, and others through March 27, 2027, while Turkish Airlines separately cites extraordinary conditions around Iran and nearby airspace. (aeroroutes.com) (turkishairlines.com)
Turkish Airlines is pulling 18 international destinations from its schedule starting in May and June 2026. (aeroroutes.com) AeroRoutes reported on April 24 that the carrier filed the suspensions in its latest Northern summer 2026 schedule update. The affected destinations are Aqaba, Billund, Bissau, Ferghana, Freetown, Havana, Hurghada, Juba, Kinshasa, Kirkuk, Leipzig/Halle, Libreville, Luanda, Lusaka, Monrovia, Najaf, Pointe Noire and Turkistan. (aeroroutes.com) The cuts are not one single pattern. Some are cancelled restarts, including Aqaba from June 1, Juba from May 2, Kirkuk from June 3 and Najaf from June 19, while others have final operating dates in May or early June. (aeroroutes.com) Several of the suspended points sit on multi-stop routes rather than standalone nonstop flights. Turkish Airlines is ending Monrovia on the Istanbul–Accra–Monrovia routing, Bissau on the Istanbul–Dakar–Bissau routing, and Lusaka on the Istanbul–Dar es Salaam–Lusaka routing while keeping the upstream sectors. (aeroroutes.com) That means the airline is trimming the outer ends of parts of its long-haul network instead of shutting whole corridors. Accra, Dakar, Dar es Salaam, Amman and Asmara remain in the schedule even where onward segments are being removed. (aeroroutes.com) The timing also splits into two buckets. AeroRoutes says many removals are filed through October 24, 2026, while Billund, Ferghana, Kirkuk, Leipzig/Halle, Najaf and Turkistan are removed through March 27, 2027. (aeroroutes.com) Turkish Airlines has also posted a separate passenger notice covering flights tied to Iran and surrounding countries, including Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria and the United Arab Emirates. That notice applies to travel dated February 28 through May 31, 2026, and offers free changes or refunds for eligible tickets. (turkishairlines.com) The airline’s announcement does not list all 18 suspended destinations, and AeroRoutes attributes the route changes to the carrier’s schedule filing rather than to a single public explanation. AeroRoutes also noted that Iranian destinations including Esfahan, Mashhad, Shiraz and Tabriz remain cancelled through at least October 24, 2026, while Tehran was tentatively listed from June 1. (aeroroutes.com) (turkishairlines.com) The immediate result is a smaller Turkish Airlines map for the summer, with the deepest changes hitting secondary and tag-on destinations rather than Istanbul’s core trunk network. (aeroroutes.com)
