The Canadian Transportation Agency has denied an application from Turkish Airlines (TK, Istanbul Airport) to operate five additional weekly flights between Türkiye and Canada for the IATA summer season in 2025.
Turkish Airlines was seeking to operate one additional frequency between Istanbul Airport and Toronto Pearson, two from Istanbul to Montréal Trudeau, and one to Vancouver International between April 1 and October 31. Last year, the Canadian Transportation Agency approved one extra frequency to the carrier, to Toronto, between May 1 and October 31, 2024.
This time, however, the agency found that “granting a further extension of extra-bilateral authority to Turkish Airlines would substantially change the negotiated regime of the [agreement on air transport between Canada and Türkiye] outside the ongoing negotiation process,“ it said in a statement.
According to that agreement, each country has the right to allocate 12 weekly flights among its designated carriers. The ch-aviation schedules module shows that Turkish Airlines is currently the only direct operator between Türkiye and Canada (plus Biman Bangladesh Airlines, which operates fifth-freedom flights between Dhaka and Toronto via Istanbul). Air Canada halted its direct service to Istanbul Atatürk in 2017.
Had the new frequency increase been approved, it would have represented a 42% increase to the capacity allowed by the agreement, which would have been “unreasonably excessive within the confines of any extra-bilateral application,” Air Canada argued, according to the CTA statement. Air Transat, Aéroports de Montréal, and the Greater Toronto Airports Authority also opposed Turkish Airlines' application.
ch-aviation has reached out to Turkish Airlines for comment.
