Turkish Airlines removes five African routes with no resumption date

Turkish Airlines has removed five African routes to Juba, Kinshasa, Libreville, Luanda, and Lusaka from its future schedules, changing previously announced temporary suspensions into permanent withdrawals with no resumption date. This change appears in the updated timetables released by the airline in the first half of September.

The five destinations include South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Angola, and Zambia. They had been removed from the flight schedule until October 24, 2026, with a resumption expected for the following season. AeroRoutes indicates that they have now been eliminated from future schedules.

The airline began suspending several international routes in the spring. In April, AeroRoutes reported 18 affected destinations across Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Central Asia, and the Caribbean. Euronews noted that Turkish Airlines had initially presented these suspensions as temporary amid rising fuel costs.

The removal of the Luanda route comes as the new Dr. António Agostinho Neto International Airport seeks to increase its traffic. Designed to accommodate up to 15 million passengers annually, it recorded only 756,028 passengers in 2025, according to figures from its operator cited by Euronews.

In Luanda, Turkish Airlines previously operated a triangular route via Kinshasa rather than a direct flight from Istanbul. This arrangement still allowed passengers from both capitals to access the airline’s international network through its Turkish hub.

In total, AeroRoutes identified eleven destinations that have been permanently removed from Turkish Airlines’ program in the update on September 11. Aqaba and Havana, which were also expected to resume in the fall, have now been postponed until at least March 28, 2027, while further network adjustments remain possible.