Conflict around Tujue Airways’ newest route

[Tujue]

IZMIR/THESSALONIKI – The Turkish regional airline «Tujue Airways» has been involved in a conflict due to its newest route. With tensions being high between the Greek and Turkish sides due to the ongoing civil unrest in Cyprus, the Turkish airline unintentionally became part of the conflict.

A Greek parliament member noticed that the newest international flight for the airline was the flight between Dalaman and Thessaloniki. Flight T7-1881 in an evening flight between the two cities, operated by a Fokker F.27 Friendship turboprop. The MP noticed that the flight number is a reference to Turkish nationalism. In 1881, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the modern republic of Turkey, was born in Thessaloniki (Selânik in Turkish). Ideally a secularist and a nationalist, the Turkish leader was one of the pillars of the Turkish War of Independence, when the Turks kicked Greece out of Anatolia. After the establishment of the Republic, he was a supporter of Misak-ı Millî, a pact that included an attempt to regain parts of the former territory by organizing referendums in relevant areas. His dream was to bring his birthplace Thessaloniki back under the Turkish flag.

The CEO of Tujue Airways replied to the Greek Consulate that he did not want to contribute to the deterioration of relations with Greece and that the flight number was a pure coincidence. "We're flying many years between Izmir and Thessaloniki under flight number T7-881, all domestic flight as well as flights to Bulgaria, Cyprus and Greece have the same flight numbers as the ones from Izmir, with an additional 1 before it. Therefor we got 1881 and any future Thessaloniki flights from our future bases will be 2881, 3881, etc." The CEO also advised to stop conspiracy theories to prevent further escalation in Cyprus or the Aegean Sea. "We all know what happened after the First World War. The Greek-Turkish war led to a population exchange in which Turks from Thessaloniki and the surrounding area and Greeks from Izmir and the surrounding area had to leave their centuries-old homes. We do not want the Greek and Turkey's neighbors to kill each other, which will lead to a split of the country of Cyprus and another population exchange."