Every airline is special. Because managing a highly dynamic air operation really takes special skills. Things are accelerated and easier only by experience. Airline Operation is extremely charismatic and interesting as well as extremely fragile and volatile. Today, even 100 years of well-established companies have been demolished, being able to serve for many years can therefore be considered as a success criterion alone.
Onur Air is a Turkish company whose headquarters is in historic Istanbul Atatürk Airport and provides low-cost transportation services. It was established on April 14, 1992, and had to cope with very strong headwinds from time to time in its 28-year history, but it has succeeded in getting out of the storms it entered. The airline, which has only the Airbus fleet, continues its maintenance operations as well at Istanbul Atatürk Airport. This mid-size airline, which I had the opportunity to work between 2005 and 2010, has a very unknown feature.
Onur Air is the airline that flies the oldest A321 test aircraft in the world. TC-ONJ (MSN 385) and TC-ONS (MSN 364) registrations are the first A321 aircraft produced. These prototype aircraft were built in 1993, and originally registered under Airbus as F-WWIA & F-WWIB.
This may not seem like a very special case alone. However, the presence of the latest model A321NEO aircraft flying with the TC-OED (MSN 7694) and TC-OEE (MSN 8085) registration number in the same fleet of the airline makes the situation really special.
In other words, Onur Air is currently the only airline company operating in the world with the oldest and newest A321 model aircraft. This is actually an indication of the broad technical capability of Onur Air. So how long will these two planes continue to fly? Onur Air received the necessary permissions and approvals from Airbus between 2016-2018 to ensure that the planes continue their flight safely. Planes can continue to fly until 2030 with the current approvals, however they will support their younger sisters by distmantling into spare parts at the end of 2020 per Onur Air’s decision.
We congratulate the airline for its success that will be appreciated technically, although it is not reflected much on us as passengers, and wish the continuation of their safe flights.