Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance and Insurance (ACMI) provider BBN Airlines has introduced the first Airbus A321 Passenger-to-Freighter (P2F) converted cargo aircraft to Turkey.
The A321P2F, registered as VP-CTN, flew to Istanbul Atatürk Airport (ISL) having gone through a conversion process in Singapore, at the city state’s Seletar Airport (XSP). The repurposed aircraft reached ISL after making two stops between XSP and ISL, namely at Chennai International Airport (MAA), India, and Dubai World Central International Airport (DWC), United Arab Emirates (UAE).
With the addition of the converted freighter, BBN Airlines’ Turkish subsidiary now has a total of five aircraft. The other four are passenger Airbus A321s, two of which are on a wet lease agreement to Freebird Airlines, while the remaining pair are operated for Tailwind Airlines, according to ch-aviation.com data.
The Airbus A321 was first delivered in July 2003 to LTU International Airways, which later merged into Air Berlin. In August 2022, the aircraft was ferried to Singapore for conversion, with its new owners taking delivery in June 2023.
In September 2022, BBN Airlines expanded into Indonesia, opening a subsidiary in the country based at Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK). Both are part of BBN Cargo Airlines, an ACMI and cargo operator headquartered in Iceland and operating since 1999.
Previously, BBN Cargo Airlines was known as Blue Bird Nordic.
The Turkish airline is on the European Union Aviation Safety Agency’s (EASA) authorized third-country operators (TCO) list, which allows it to operate flights to countries within the European Union’s (EU) jurisdiction.