On Sunday 26th March 2023, low-cost Turkish airline, SunExpress commenced flights from Bristol Airport to Antalya, Turkey. The flights will operate on a Wednesday and Sunday before an extra day is added from May 2023 with 3 flights per week.
Flights operate as follows:
- XQ584 AYT 15:00-17:35 BRS (Wed & Sun)
- XQ585 BRS 18:30-00:55+1 AYT (Wed & Sun)
The first flight was operated by a Boeing 737-800 TC-SEM, a 7 year old aircraft delivered to SunExpress in October 2015. Spotters at Bristol Airport are hopeful future flights will bring special liveries and some of the SunExpress 737 Max fleet. SunExpress is a Turkish airline based in Antalya. It operates from hubs at Adnan Menderes Airport (ADB) and Antalya Airport (AYT). The carrier is jointly owned by Turkish Airlines (TK) and Lufthansa (LH). SunExpress flies to more than 100 destinations, including about 20 cities across Turkey. International flights are available to countries in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
Matthew Plane Spotting videoed the first arrival and departure:
Simon has been writing aviation articles for nearly 10 years and is the senior article writer at Fresh Aviation, with a background in aviation and a commercial pilot Simon knows his stuff in the aviation world. Simon has spoken on BBC Radio, contributed to Bristol Post and has various aviation articles on various websites.