Turkish Airlines is one of my favorite airlines in the world, thanks in particular to their global route network, as the airline flies to more countries than any other airline in the world (which is a pretty cool title to have). Well, the airline has now announced their latest US destination.

This is a destination that has been rumored for a while, but they’ve now finally followed through on it.

Turkish Airlines will launch daily nonstop flights between Istanbul and Newark as of May 25, 2020. Technically this is a service resumption, as the airline operated the route nonstop until 1994, but I’d say a 25+ year service gap is pretty significant.

The airline will operate the flight using an A330-300, with the following schedule:

TK29 Istanbul to Newark departing 6:35PM arriving 10:30PM

TK30 Newark to Istanbul departing 12:25AM arriving 5:10PM

This Newark service is already bookable, though as of the time of this post I don’t see any award seats on the flight (though I imagine they are likely to be loaded soon). The flight will cover a distance of just over 5,000 miles, and is blocked at 9hr45min eastbound and 10hr55min westbound.

The A330 that will be used for this route will feature fully flat beds in business class, in a 2-2-2 configuration. While not the most cutting edge product, I find these seats to be comfortable, and ideal if traveling with a companion.

This new route complements Turkish Airlines’ extensive service to New York JFK, as the airline flies there up to 3x daily. Newark is a logical addition to their route network:

While both JFK and EWR are convenient enough from Manhattan, a lot of people from outside the city have a strong preference for EWR

Turkish Airlines is in the Star Alliance, so they’ll have significant connectivity at Newark thanks to United’s hub there (unfortunately the westbound flight isn’t well timed for connections out of Newark)

Turkish Airlines’ other US destinations include Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York JFK, San Francisco, and Washington.

It’s expected that Turkish will add at least one other North American route in 2020, as the airline is expected to launch flights between Istanbul and Vancouver.

Anyone excited about Turkish Airlines’ new flight to Newark?