Turkish Cargo Launches Freighter Flights to Mitiga

Turkish Cargo will launch scheduled freight flights to Libya this weekend inaugurating a twice weekly connection to Mitiga Airport, close to the North African country’s capital Tripoli on January 8, 2012. The airline is offering flights every Wednesday and Sunday using an Airbus A310-300F freighter with 36 tonnes of capacity, but will substitute a larger A330-200F, with 65 tonnes of cargo space when demand requires.

The cargo specialist already has a limited presence in the Libyan market managing the belly hold capacity on the passenger flights of Turkish Airlines (THY) between Istanbul and Benghazi. The airline will offer direct links to Mitiga from Istanbul, but the return flights will operate via Zurich in Switzerland.

Mitiga International Airport (IATA: MJI, ICAO: HLLM) is located about 8 kilometres (5 miles) east of downtown Tripoli. It is a former US and Libyan Air Force facility that was opened to civilian operations in 1995. Turkish Cargo is understood to be the first overseas freight carrier to establish scheduled cargo flights into Mitiga.