Turkish Airlines will finally commence flights to Australia, with the launch of a Melbourne-Istanbul service via Singapore on 1 March 2024. The flights will initially run three times per week using Boeing 787-9 jets, before switching to Airbus A350-900s from April. Both planes have Economy and Business Class seating.

This route launch was originally scheduled for 15 March 2024, but it’s since been brought forward by two weeks.

Flight TK169 will depart Melbourne on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, leaving Melbourne in the evening and arriving in Istanbul the next day.

This is the full schedule (outside of daylight savings in Australia):

• TK169 Melbourne 21:20 – Singapore 02:50 (next day)
• TK169 Singapore 04:30 – Istanbul 10:40

In the other direction, TK168 will leave Istanbul on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays, with an arrival in Melbourne the following evening. This is the schedule:

• TK168 Istanbul 17:00 – Singapore 08:45 (next day)
• TK168 Singapore 10:15 – Melbourne 19:40

From Istanbul, Turkish Airlines offers onward connectivity to almost every major city in Europe and Africa. If you have Star Alliance Gold status or a Business Class ticket, you’ll also be able to use Turkish Airlines’ spectacular lounge at Istanbul Airport.

Passengers will be able to fly all the way through from Melbourne to Istanbul on the same plane. During the brief stop in Singapore, all passengers would need to leave the plane so it can be cleaned. There is also the possibility to only fly on the Melbourne-Singapore or Singapore-Istanbul sectors.

Eventually, Turkish Airlines would like to serve both Melbourne and Sydney with non-stop flights from Istanbul. The Melbourne-Istanbul route is only marginally longer than Perth-London, which is flown by Qantas, so this would be technically possible.

In the interim, the Singapore stopover does come with some advantages. As well as an opportunity for passengers to stretch their legs mid-journey, this has the added benefit of increasing competition on the busy Melbourne-Singapore route. Turkish Airlines will join Emirates in offering fifth-freedom flights on this route. (In fact, the timing of Turkish Airlines’ Singapore-Melbourne service is almost identical to that of Emirates.)

Read our review of Turkish Airlines A350 Economy Class.

Book a seat using frequent flyer points

Turkish Airlines’ new Melbourne-Istanbul flights are already on sale, and we’ve already started to see some reward seat availability!

At the time of writing, we’re seeing up to 1 Business Class and up to 3 Economy Class reward seats available per flight.

As Turkish Airlines is a member of Star Alliance, you can redeem points or miles with any Star Alliance frequent flyer program for seats on Turkish Airlines.

For example, you could redeem Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles to fly with Turkish Airlines from Melbourne to Istanbul. It would cost 101,500 KrisFlyer miles + $448 in taxes & charges for a one-way seat in Business Class.

Although Turkish Airlines normally levies fuel surcharges on award bookings, these are not payable if you redeem Air Canada Aeroplan points! It would cost 110,000 Aeroplan points (plus third-party taxes) to fly Turkish Airlines Business Class from Australia to Europe.

If you don’t yet have enough Aeroplan points to book this, you can even buy points directly from Air Canada. (We’d suggest waiting for a promotion where you can often get up to 100% bonus points!)

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Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.