Turkish Airlines Starting Service to Sharjah – a Potential Game Changer?

a large white building with a parking lot and cars in the background

Turkish Airlines will be starting a daily service to Sharjah – an emirate of UAE. The service starts from April 5, 2019.  Turkish Airlines will be deploying an Airbus A321 on this route.

This doesn’t look anything but an innocuous move. Why do I believe it is a potential game changer in UAE?

There are two reasons.

Opening up of Sharjah Airport

Sharjah Airport (SHJ) is the younger sibling to Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports. In 2017, SHJ had a traffic of 12 million passengers while Dubai and Abu Dhabi served over 90 million and 25 million passengers respectively.

The emirate of Sharjah has its own airline – Air Arabia. AirArabia has an all Airbus A320 fleet and has an extensive network in the 2-4 hours distance across Middle East, North Africa, Asia and even Eastern Europe.

However, the bulk of Sharjah airport’s traffic caters to various airports in the Indian subcontinent and is driven by LCCs.

The flight to Istanbul will open up the entire network of Turkish Airlines – 306 destinations in 124 countries.

Lower cost Alternative to Dubai Airport

Sharjah Airport is in close proximity to Dubai Airport (DXB). The airports are 15 to 20 minutes drive from each other. Regular taxis in Dubai will take you to Sharjah so reaching the airport is hassle free.

There are significant differences in fares for Turkish Airlines flights from DXB and SHJ airports even for identical destinations and dates.

Let us see a few examples

New York

Dubai to New York round-trip economy fare is $1,039 (link)

Sharjah to New York round-trip economy fare is $710 (link)

Bangkok

Dubai to Bangkok round-trip economy fare is $761 (link)

Sharjah to Bangkok London round-trip economy fare is $495 (link)

 

In both instances, you could save approximately $300 per passenger. This would make travelling to Sharjah airport worth it.

Conclusion

I believe the price difference will eventually stabilize. This is reminiscent of the days when Etihad was in expansion mode. However, this launch will open a whole new set of opportunities for residents of Sharjah as well as Dubai.

 

7 Comments

  1. I think you have a typo and the last fare should be Sharjah to BKK. That said, I agree this is a very interesting analysis. Mostly Indian, Pakistani, and Filipino population in Sharjah. Targeting flights to those countries from Sharjah would be a great move to steal market share.

    1. Thank you for noticing the typo.
      Agreed with the population analysis. Another aspect is that most Sharjah residents I know travel to DXB if they are going on a vacation. This will change especially given the prices.

  2. Amazing! I just flew from DXB late January. If I knew about Sharjah I would have waited a week extra lol

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