Following the setbacks experienced by the Russian aviation and Aeroflot in particular, the Russian airline cannot take delivery of the aircrafts it has ordered. As a result, six of its A350s are joining the Turkish Airlines fleet.
First aircraft repainted
The first of them, with the Turkish Airlines livery on the fuselage but the Aeroflot livery on the tail and engines, has just been repainted in the facilities of the Turkish airline.
If you’re wondering why the device had a hybrid livery the reason is simple. If the fuselage is painted after final assembly, engines and tail arrive already painted at the factory. Thus, if Airbus was able to paint the fuselage in the colors of the new recipient of the aircraft, the rest of the aircraft was already painted in the colors of the former.
A new cabin for the Turkish Airlines fleet
More interestingly, this aircraft retains the beautiful cabin of Aeroflot’s A350s about which we were complimentary in this previous article. It includes a business class with sliding doors, which is a significant improvement over the already beautiful cabin of the other A350s in the Turkish fleet.
The cabin is also more spacious, with only 28 seats compared to 32 on the original Turkish Airlines A350s, but this applies to all classes of travel, since the Aeroflot aircraft have 288 seats compared to 297 for Turkish Airlines.
It is not known if this product duality will last and if so for how long. From our point of view, Turkish Airlines’ priority should be to improve the cabins of its B777s or A330s rather than installing its cabin in Aeroflot’s A350s.
For the record Turkish Airlines had until now two different cabins in long haul fleet.
On its A350 and B787 aircraft, STELIA Aerospace’s Symphony seat is available in business class in a 1-2-1 configuration.
As for its B777s and A330s, it has an old cabin configuration of 2-3-2 on the 777s and 2-2-2 on the A330s that is now outdated.
Bottom line
Turkish Airlines is getting A350s that should have been delivered to Aeroflot and that the Russian airline cannot receive because of war-related sanctions.
These devices must be repainted with the colors of their new purchaser but also introduce a new hard product rather successful of which one knows if they will be preserved nor how long.
Image : A350 Turkish Airlines by Johann Kirby Datoy via Shutterstock
