Turkish Airlines (TK) flew Italian football club Juventus nonstop from Perth to Turin on Tuesday, August 11, 2026, in what became the longest uninterrupted flight in the carrier’s history. The Boeing 777-300ER, registered TC-LJE, covered roughly 13,800 kilometres (8,575 miles) in 16 hours and 27 minutes, according to flight-tracking data from Flightradar24 cited by Daily Sabah.
The charter closed out Juventus’s preseason tour of Western Australia, where the club had played two exhibition matches as part of a four-team Italian football series in Perth. Turkish Airlines positioned the same aircraft from Istanbul Airport (IST) to Perth Airport (PER) days earlier on flight TK3700, a 14-hour, 30-minute leg, before picking up the Juventus squad for the return journey to Turin Airport (TRN).
Boeing 777-300ER Covers 13,800 Kilometres Without a Stop
The return charter operated under flight number TK3701, departing Perth and landing in Turin without a fuel stop or crew change en route. A standard scheduled Boeing 777-300ER service between the two cities would typically route through Istanbul or another connecting hub, adding hours to the journey; this charter bypassed that entirely to get the squad home in one leg.
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Perth to Turin is not a route Turkish Airlines operates on a scheduled basis, and the airline has not indicated plans to add it. The flight instead reflects the kind of one-off charter work airlines increasingly take on for major sports clubs completing overseas tours, where a direct routing saves a travelling squad a full day of connections.
The Boeing 777-300ER is Turkish Airlines’ largest passenger widebody and typically flies its longest scheduled routes, including services to Los Angeles and Houston. The type has a published range of roughly 13,650 kilometres in a standard commercial configuration, meaning the Perth-Turin sector pushed close to the aircraft’s practical operating limits once winds, payload and reserve fuel requirements were factored in.
Perth Hosted a Four-Club Italian Football Series Before the Flight
Juventus’s Australian visit was part of Calcio Italiano, a week-long series at Optus Stadium in Perth that brought together AC Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus and Palermo between August 5 and August 11, 2026. AC Milan and Inter opened the series with a Milan derby on August 5, before Juventus faced Inter in an overseas edition of the Derby d’Italia on August 8.
Inter won that match 2-1, with Federico Dimarco and Andy Diouf scoring either side of a late Francisco Conceição goal for Juventus. The Bianconeri closed out their tour three days later with a friendly against Serie B side Palermo on August 11, immediately before boarding the Turkish Airlines charter for the flight home.
The full Calcio Italiano schedule at Optus Stadium ran as follows:
- August 5: AC Milan vs. Inter Milan (Milan derby)
- August 8: Juventus vs. Inter Milan (Derby d’Italia, Inter won 2-1)
- August 11: Juventus vs. Palermo (Juventus’s final match of the tour)
Organisers billed the series as the first time either Italian derby had been staged in Australia, drawing large crowds of Perth’s Italian community across the week.
Juventus Squad Included Turkey International Kenan Yıldız
The Juventus squad on board included Turkey international Kenan Yıldız, the club’s number 10 and one of its most closely watched young players. Born in Regensburg, Germany, to a Turkish father, Yıldız chose to represent Turkey at international level and has become a regular for the national team since making his senior debut in 2023.
Defender Zeki Çelik, also a current Turkey international, travelled on the same charter. Their presence gave the Perth-Turin flight added domestic interest in Turkey beyond the operational record it set for the airline, since both players are established fixtures in the Turkish national squad’s build-up to upcoming qualifiers.
Turkish Airlines Plans Nonstop Australia Routes from Late 2027
The Perth-Turin charter now stands as Turkish Airlines’ longest single flight by duration, ahead of any of its scheduled long-haul services. The carrier’s longest passenger route by block time is currently Sydney to Istanbul, which can run up to 21 hours and 40 minutes because it routes through Kuala Lumpur, while its direct services to cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco top out at around 15 hours.
The charter arrives as Turkish Airlines works toward adding true ultra-long-range aircraft to its fleet. Chairman Murat Şeker told Anadolu Agency in June 2026 that specially configured Airbus A350-1000 jets capable of flying up to 17 hours nonstop will join the fleet from late 2027, enabling direct service to Sydney, Melbourne, and cities including Buenos Aires, Santiago, and Lima.
“With specially designed versions of the Airbus A350, we will be able to connect Istanbul to even longer routes,” Şeker said at the International Air Transport Association’s annual meeting in Rio de Janeiro. Those routes would replace the current one-stop connections and put Turkish Airlines in more direct competition with carriers already flying nonstop between Europe and Australia.
All in All
The ultra-long-range aircraft form part of a broader fleet plan under the airline’s 2033 strategy, which targets a fleet of roughly 800 aircraft. Turkish Airlines has already placed orders for nearly 420 aircraft split between Airbus and Boeing, with negotiations continuing on a further 100 Boeing jets.
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Şeker said the airline’s growth targets remain unchanged despite wider pressures on the aviation sector, pointing to Turkey’s domestic refining capacity and Istanbul’s coastal access to imported jet fuel as buffers against regional price swings. The Juventus charter, while a one-off, gives the carrier a public marker of what its widebody fleet can already do over distance, ahead of the purpose-built ultra-long-range jets arriving in 2027.
Turkish Airlines has not said whether the Perth-Turin routing will factor into planning for the new nonstop Australia services.
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