Turkish Airlines is suspending 18 international routes beginning next month, removing more than 200 weekly flights including return services from its schedule between May and October. The deepest cuts are concentrated in May and June, when more than 140 weekly departures will disappear.
The suspended destinations include Juba, Kinshasa, Luanda, Lusaka, Aqaba, Billund, Bissau, Ferghana, Freetown, Havana, Hurghada, Kirkuk, Leipzig/Halle, Libreville, Monrovia, Najaf, Pointe Noire and Turkistan. Among the clearest changes, the airline has removed the earlier planned restart of the Juba route in May 2026, cancelled the planned service resumption for Aqaba from June 1, 2026 and scrapped the twice-weekly Bissau service scheduled for June 8, 2026. The Bissau route is now tentatively rescheduled for March 28, 2027.
The cuts reach across Africa, the Middle East, Europe and the Caribbean, and several routes are being pared back rather than simply dropped. The Ouagadougou service will be reduced from eight to four weekly flights, while the last Lusaka flight is set for May 10, 2026. On the Kinshasa and Luanda rotations, the final Istanbul to Kinshasa to Luanda to Istanbul flight is scheduled for May 3, 2026, and the last Istanbul to Luanda to Kinshasa to Istanbul service is scheduled for May 1, 2026. The last Istanbul to Ouagadougou to Freetown flight is set for June 6, 2026.
Juba shows how quickly the network has shifted. Turkish Airlines launched direct flights to Juba in June 2022 with three weekly services on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays using Boeing B737-8 aircraft. Direct flights were stopped in March last year, then rerouted via Asmara before continuing to Juba and later reduced to twice weekly using Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft. Under the new plan, flights will now terminate in Asmara, which becomes a nonstop terminator only.
There is also a separate alert on the carrier’s website saying some flights to and from Iran and the surrounding region have been cancelled. Turkish Airlines says the current situation in the region’s airspace is being monitored in real-time and that additional flight cancellations may occur. The airline tentatively lists the Tehran schedule from June 1, 2026, but says that schedule remains subject to change.
The broader timetable changes show an airline trimming far more than a few thin routes. More than 100 weekly departures per month were removed between May and October, and over 200 weekly flights including return services have now come out of the schedule. For travelers, that means the next few months bring not just isolated cancellations but a wider reset of how Turkish Airlines is deploying capacity across several long-haul and regional markets.
