The race for the first-ever eastern Australia-Europe flights is heating up – and it looks like it’s between two carriers.
Turkish Airlines, the only mainland European carrier to fly to Australia, just announced it will increase its current four-times-weekly Sydney-Istanbul flights to a daily service in January 2026.
The daily operation will launch after a progressive increase in flights throughout 2025, which will see Turkish Airlines up flights to five times per week in mid-June and six times per week in late November.
The Istanbul-based carrier commenced its Sydney service at the end of November 2024 after launching its debut Aussie flights to Melbourne earlier in the year.
“Turkish Airlines’ decision to ramp up to daily services so soon after launching in Sydney is a tremendous vote of confidence in the strength of the market,” Sydney Airport’s Group Executive, Aviation Growth and Group Strategy Greg Botham said.
“This expansion will provide even greater connectivity between Australia and Türkiye, benefiting both business and leisure travellers.
“It confirms Sydney Airport as Turkish Airlines’ leading gateway in Australia, reinforcing our position as the country’s premier international hub.
Utilising its A350-900 aircraft, Turkish operates its Sydney-Istanbul route via Kuala Lumpur, so it’s not a non-stop service. However, the airline has stated that it does intend to start non-stop flights on the route in 2026.
Sydney Airport also confirmed the route will be operated with non-stop flights next year, “pending aircraft delivery schedules”.
“We’re also excited by the prospect of a future non-stop service to Istanbul, which will make travel between our two countries even more seamless,” Botham said.
This could make Turkish Airlines the first carrier to operate regularly scheduled non-stop flights between eastern Australia and Europe… unless Qantas gets there first.
The flying kangaroo already operates non-stop flights between Perth and London and Paris as well as a seasonal service to Rome. And while it will come a little later than initially hoped (2023 was originally floated as a possible launch date, and then late-2025), Qantas says its highly anticipated non-stop Sydney-London service (under the Project Sunrise moniker) will now launch in mid-2026, which means it could still cross the finish line before Turkish. So watch this space…
To whet your appetite for Qantas’ Project Sunrise service, check out the entire cabin design and world-first ‘Wellbeing Zone’ for the A350s that will fly the route here.
Meanwhile, Turkish Airlines is also eyeing a third direct (but not non-stop) Australasian flight in 2025. Read more about that here.
