The new Turkish airline MGA has started registering the first aircraft in Turkey to carry tourists to Antalya.
The first Turkish registration of TC-MGD was Boeing 737-800, which previously flew in the Ukrainian airline Azur Air Ukraine under the number UR-AZE. The second Ukrainian Boeing 737-800 for MGA will be a flight with registration UR-AZF or UR-AZG.
The Turkish aviation portal airporthaber.com published a photo of the process, as the livery of the Ukrainian air carrier is covered with stickers with MGA identification marks.
The Turkish tourism publication turizmguncel.com notes that the new airline is associated with the tour operator ANEX Tour. This company actively worked in the Russian and Ukrainian markets and carried tourists with its own airlines Azur Air from Russia and Azur Air Ukraine from Ukraine.
The air carriers were formally independent, but the parent company regularly shuffled planes between Ukrainian and Russian bases, without even changing the color of the planes. Because of this, aircraft from Russia in the colors of the Russian flag carried tourists from Ukraine to Turkey and vice versa – blue and yellow airliners delivered Russian tourists.
At the moment, it is not known for sure whether the planes that previously flew in Ukraine will carry Russian tourists to Turkey. This can be confirmed when MGA makes its first commercial flights.
ANEX Tour cannot fully use its Russian airline Azur Air to transport tourists from Russia to Turkey due to US sanctions imposed on it. This problem should be solved by the launch of MGA, a Turkish airline, in which airliners re-registered in Turkey will fly.
Only the ethical question remains unresolved – how correct is it to use Ukrainian airliners to transport Russian tourists, who cannot fly in Ukraine because of the war unleashed by Russia.
The first aircraft for the new Turkish airline MGA received the registration TC-MGD. Previously flew with Azur Air Ukraine under the number UR-AZE
The second Azur Air Ukraine aircraft is covered with MGA flight stickers