In 2008, Turkish Airlines founded its low-cost subsidiary AnadoluJet. While the airline initially operated mainly domestic flights from its to hubs Ankara and Istanbul Sabiha-Gokcan, it has begun serving Western European airports in later years.
Despite board service being vastly different from mainline Turkish Airlines flights, AnadoluJet services were marketed with a TK flight number and sold on Turkish Airlines’ website. At times, even frequent flyers had difficulties figuring out who would operate certain flights. Depending on route and flight, frequent flyer perks like lounge access and free hold luggage were granted. In some cases, you could even collect miles with AnadoluJet.
This is about to end. Turkish Airlines is in the process of transforming AnadoluJet into a full fletched, stand alone low-cost brand called AJet. This has consequences for Star Alliance frequent flyers, as they will no longer be able to earn miles or enjoy status benefits when flying the “new” airline.
Turkish Airlines Confirms Changes in an E-Mail
Turkish Airlines informed Miles&Smiles members about the changes in an e-mail. It was laughably short and could easily have been a tweet. On top of that, it arrived two weeks late – 15 days after most changes were already implemented:
If you hit the click here button, you are forwarded to a FAQ-page that tells you nothing more than these four bullet points:
This leaves a lot of questions unanswered. The main reason for that is that the info above only concerns Miles&Smiles, but no other Star Alliance frequent flyer program. So there is no official word on:
- Will miles for flights booked before March 12 be credited with other Star Alliance programs?
- Will status benefits for Star Alliance Silver and Gold member be granted if the ticket was booked before March 12?
- Do these changes apply to all AJet flights immediately, or will they be implemented step-by-step?
- What are the differences between AnadoluJet’s and AJet’s inflight product?
- What about tickets that were booked after March 12, but got a
TKflight number? These were on sale on TurkishAirlines.com as recently as last Monday.
We reached out to both Turkish Airlines and AJet last Monday, but have yet to hear back from them.
Bottom Line
Until the rebranding, AnadoluJet was a more attractive option compared to other Turkish LCCs like Pegasus Airlines. The list of advantages is now down to none, as the connection with Turkish Airlines is reduced to zero when it comes to the passenger experience.
Cover Picture: Jonas Senger