Turkish Airlines removes Aeroflot livery from its Airbus A350

Turkish Technic, the maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) arm of Turkish Airlines, has repainted the first of its Airbus A350 wide-body airliners originally built for Russia’s Aeroflot with the airline’s own branding.

A video of the A-350-900, registered as TC-LGL, being repainted was published by Turkish Technic’s Twitter account on December 20, 2022.

The clip shows the old livery being removed and the new one being applied at Turkish Technic’s facility at Istanbul Airport (IST). The procedure was likely to have been completed between November 12 and December 8, 2022.

According to Flightradar 24 data, the aircraft stayed at IST for 26 days, and has been active ever since.

Images of the aircraft, uploaded to Jetphotos.com, also show it sporting the old livery until November, and having a new one starting mid-December.

Before being repainted the TC-LGL featured Aeroflot’s characteristic blue engine nacelles and winglets. The Russian flag on the aircraft’s tail was temporarily covered with a blue finish and the inscription “Turkish Airlines” was applied to its fuselage.

The aircraft was delivered to Turkish in July 2022, along with another A-350 registered as TC-LGK, according to Planespotters data. Both aircraft were originally intended to enter the fleet of Russian flag carrier Aeroflot.

However, Russia was heavily sanctioned following the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and all aircraft deliveries to Aeroflot and other Russian airlines have been stopped.