Corendon Airlines Europe

Is Corendon Airlines Europe safe?

Yes, broadly. Corendon Airlines Europe has never had a fatal accident or lost an aircraft, and it flies under the same EU rules as TUIfly and Marabu. But its log is busier than its size suggests: a hard landing that damaged a 737 in 2024, a decompression with minor injuries in 2022, and in October 2026 a hijack code sent by mistake that put fighter jets in the air. It is not on IATA's register of safety audits either. We score it 78, one point above its Turkish sister Corendon Airlines.

Which Corendon is this?

The Corendon group runs three airlines under one brand. This one, legally Touristic Aviation Services Ltd, holds a certificate from Malta, flies Boeing 737-800s registered there (9H-) and sells flights under the code XR, mostly from German and Belgian airports to Türkiye, Greece, Spain, the Canaries and Egypt. The Turkish airline uses XC and Turkish-registered jets, and Corendon Dutch Airlines (CD) flies from Amsterdam.

The line between them is blurred. Some Maltese jets fly flights sold as XC, such as the Gazipaşa landing below, and live tracking in October 2026 showed two of them flying with the Turkish airline's call sign. We count an event on this page when a Maltese-registered aircraft of this airline flew it, and describe it on the other.

The Gazipaşa landing in 2024

On 9 May 2024, 737-800 9H-TJF flew XC1031 from Cologne to Gazipaşa-Alanya with 184 passengers and six crew. It landed on runway 08 at about 10:45 local time, both nose tyres burst, and the nose wheels were ground about halfway down before the jet stopped on the runway, sitting on the nose gear strut. Nobody was hurt.

Germany's BFU, which read out the flight recorders for the Turkish investigators, said in January 2025 that the aircraft had touched down hard and was substantially damaged, which makes it an accident. It was ferried to Bacău in Romania for repair and flew again in July 2024. We found no final report by October 2026.

The incident record

Three events stand out from the last five years:

• October 2021: on flight XR1050 from Cologne to Rhodes, a woman fell unconscious out of the rear toilet at 37,000 feet, and four more passengers then collapsed one after another. A doctor and a nurse on board helped. We found no published cause.
• June 2022: flight XR2271 from Nuremberg to Palma lost cabin pressure at 33,000 feet south of Basel. The crew made an emergency descent and landed at Basel; 37 passengers were checked for ear pain, and Switzerland's investigators reported minor injuries and opened an investigation.
• October 2026: flight XR456 from Corfu to Nuremberg, 9H-CXD, sent the hijack code 7500 over Croatia, and controllers could not raise the crew by radio. A Croatian Rafale and German Eurofighters escorted it, and Nuremberg airport closed until it landed. Corendon blamed a brief radio malfunction.

Add technical returns for an autopilot failure (Düsseldorf, 2023), a damaged tyre (Brussels, 2024) and a flap problem (Nuremberg, 2026), and the incident score comes out at 66, lower than most EU holiday airlines.

Who checks it?

Transport Malta issues the certificate under EASA rules, and Malta is in the FAA's Category 1FAA IASAThe US FAA's check of whether a country's aviation regulator meets ICAO standards. Category 1 means it does; Category 2 means it does not.More in the glossary. When we searched IATA's IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary registry on 28 October 2026, the only Corendon entry was the Turkish airline (CAI), registered to 18 November 2027. The Maltese company was not listed, and none of the Maltese airlines on the registry is Corendon. So we score oversight 86, our level for EU airlines without IOSA.

Before you fly

• Look at the flight code and the "operated by" line. XR is this airline; XC and CD are its sisters, each with its own record.
• Keep your ears in mind on descent. After a decompression or a fast descent, ear pain is the most common injury; chewing or swallowing helps.
• Check your government's advice before flying to Egypt. Hurghada and other Red Sea resorts are on the network, and advisories there change with events in the region.

How we scored it

The accident record (84) carries one non-fatal accident in a short history. Oversight (86) is EU-level without IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary. Incidents (66) and an all-737-800 fleet with no published ages (62) cost the most; the holiday network scores 76.