AnadoluJet (Ankara Esenboga) has taken delivery of its first Airbus aircraft, an A321-200NX, opportunistically taken over from sanctioned Russian carrier S7 Airlines (S7, Novosibirsk).
TC-LUJ (msn 10883) was ferried from Montpellier to Istanbul Airport on July 7, 2022, and operated its first revenue service from Istanbul Sabiha Gökcen to Batman two days later, Flightradar24 ADS-B data shows. It has since been deployed both domestically and internationally.
The aircraft is the first of seven A321-200NX the low-cost Turkish Airlines division plans to add. AnadoluJet also intends to add six A320-200Ns and one more B737-8. Turkish Airlines Chief Executive Bilal Ekşi recently told ch-aviation the LCC division would operate a mixed Airbus and Boeing fleet in the near term.
Thus far, AnadoluJet has operated exclusively B737-800s. It has thirty-nine aircraft of the type in its own fleet and wet-leases another 13 under a long-term agreement from SunExpress (a 50/50 joint venture of Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa). It also operates six B737-8s which were not taken up by S7 Airlines.
