Turkish Airlines to resume Erbil, Baghdad flights in May

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkey’s main carrier, Turkish Airlines, is set to resume flights to both Erbil and Baghdad in May, the company said on Thursday.

In a statement, Turkish Airlines said it will “operate round-trip flights from Istanbul to Erbil International Airport starting May 8,” while “flights from Istanbul to Baghdad International Airport will be operated on May 14.”

Days earlier, Turkey’s leading private low-cost carrier, Pegasus Airlines, announced on Tuesday that it will also resume flights from Erbil International Airport to Istanbul on May 8.

It is worth noting that Ankara’s carriers, including Turkish Airlines, Pegasus, AnadoluJet, and SunExpress, suspended their flights to the Kurdistan Region and Iraq in early March.

The suspension came a little over a week after the United States and Israel launched a wide-scale aerial campaign against Iran that triggered six weeks of hostilities before the warring sides agreed to a Pakistan-mediated ceasefire on April 8.

Caught in the crosshairs of the fighting, the Kurdistan Region and Iraq had in late February shut down airspace to reopen them around 40 days later in early April.

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