Air Turkey Airbus A380-800

So fun fact, Air Turkey had orders for the A380, but interestingly enough, they never arrived. Let me explain.

Back in 2002, Airbus had numerous customers for their A3XX programme, which would be dubbed the A380, and good ol' Air Turkey was one of them! Air Turkey were big fans of their fairly large existing fleet of 747s, and they also loved Airbus. So, on 22 November 2002, Air Turkey placed an order for 8 A380 aircraft. Air Turkey were quite excited, and they were very public with this. However, over the years they got quieter and quieter on the A380, and in April 2011, keen-eyed avgeeks noticed that the A380 was peculiarly missing from Air Turkey's order book. Indeed the A380 would never arrive, and it is believed that Air Turkey quietly cancelled the A380 order with Airbus some time between 2009 and 2011.

So alas, Air Turkey would never receive the A380 'Superjumbo', but what if they did?

Firstly, they would certainly be flown between Istanbul and London, New York, Paris, and perhaps even Ankara and Izmir. Air Turkey seemed pretty keen to fly the A380 domestically.
Secondly, they may have been retired during the COVID-19 pandemic. A few airlines of course retired their A380s early, and maybe Air Turkey would've done the same.

However, we may never know, for Air Turkey were very hush hush about the A380 in the late 2000s/early 2010s, and continue to never bring it up. The bottom one was the livery depicted in official renders, and the top one is just a 'what if?' concept as to what it would look like in the present day.

There are no tail numbers/registrations on either of the 2 A380s depicted above for they were never allocated any, nor were there any registrations even reserved for the A380 at all, but just assume that these are A380s built some time between 2007 and 2012ish.