Corendon Dutch Airlines

Is Corendon Dutch Airlines safe?

Yes. Corendon Dutch Airlines has never had an accident in fifteen years of flying holidaymakers out of the Netherlands, it flies under the same EU rules as TUI fly Netherlands and Transavia, and its own fleet is three Boeing 737 MAX 9s less than four years old. The weak spot is one serious incident: in July 2022 a control cable that had never been replaced since 2000 snapped on a 737-800 about to leave Heraklion, and the Dutch Safety Board found it badly worn and short of lubrication. We score the airline 85, well above its Maltese and Turkish sisters (78 and 77) but below TUI's Dutch airline (88).

Three airlines, one brand

Corendon is a Dutch-Turkish travel group with three airlines. This one, Corendon Dutch Airlines B.V., sells flights under the code CD and flies Dutch-registered jets (PH-) with the call sign DUTCH CORENDON. Corendon Airlines (XC) is the larger Turkish company in Antalya, and Corendon Airlines Europe (XR) holds a Maltese certificate and flies mainly from Germany and Belgium. Aircraft and flight numbers move between them, so the code on your booking is the best guide to which record applies.

The group is shrinking. In September 2026 it said its three airlines had flown 28 jets of their own plus two wet-leased ones that summer and planned about 21 for summer 2027, citing fuel costs. It has not said how the cut falls between the three certificates.

The aileron cable that snapped over Crete

On 8 July 2022, 737-800 PH-CDF took off from Heraklion for Amsterdam with 179 passengers and six crew. Straight after lift-off it began rolling to the left, and the pilots needed constant rudder and aileron input to keep the wings level. They stopped the climb at 18,000 feet and diverted to Athens, where they landed without further trouble.

The left aileron cable had failed in the wheel well, and the left aileron was stuck in the up position. Flight data showed it broke during the crew's flight-control check before taxi, a check that cannot reveal such a failure because the pilots cannot see the ailerons. The Dutch Safety Board's final report, published in August 2024, found that the cable was the original one fitted when the jet was delivered in January 2000, with 75,776 flight hours on it, and that both it and its paired cable were corroded, worn and not lubricated enough. The maintenance records showed the required inspections signed off, but the board could not rule out that the cables had not been treated as the procedures required. It also noted that calm weather helped the crew keep control.

That is why this event weighs heavily in our incident score. It was not bad luck with a part; it points at maintenance on an ageing jet. Since then the 737-800s have gone, and the newest MAX 9s will not reach that age for decades.

The rest of the record

Other events in the last ten years were smaller, but there are several:

• January 2017: a 737-800 struck its tail on take-off from Amsterdam for Lanzarote; runway inspectors found seven metres of scrape marks, and the crew returned.
• June 2017: a false wheel-well fire warning led to a Mayday and return to Amsterdam.
• June 2019: a seagull hit the nose of a 737-800 climbing out of Alghero and bent it, grounding the jet for more than a day.
• July and November 2023: a flap problem on the way to Gran Canaria and an elevator fault near Munich on the way to Hurghada, both ending in safe returns to Amsterdam.

None hurt anyone. Taken together with the 2022 cable failure they keep incidents at 72, below TUI fly Netherlands (84) but above Corendon Airlines Europe (66).

A small, new fleet and a borrowed widebody

Corendon Dutch Airlines took its first 737 MAX 9, PH-CDP, in September 2023, the first of the type in the EU, and its third, PH-CDR, in April 2024. They seat 213 people. When an Alaska Airlines MAX 9 lost a door plug in January 2024, Corendon's jets kept flying: they have a working emergency exit where the Alaska jet had a plug.

The Caribbean flights are a different story. Since November 2023 Corendon has flown Amsterdam to Curaçao and Bonaire with an Airbus A350-900 leased from World2Fly, a Spanish airline, which flies it with its own crews and certificate. When that aircraft broke down on Bonaire in December 2025, stranding 422 passengers overnight, Corendon said World2Fly was responsible for the operation. Under our rule for wet leases, that record belongs to World2Fly, not to this page. The same rule puts a June 2017 decompression on Corendon Airlines' record: a Turkish 737-800 (TC-TJJ) flying Hurghada–Amsterdam for this airline lost cabin pressure north-east of Athens and diverted to Antalya. Corendon also hired two 737s with crews from the Ukrainian airline SkyUp in summer 2023 (Luchtvaartnieuws) and an A320 from Canada Jetlines, based at Maastricht, in summer 2024 (Up in the Sky); whenever another company's crew flies such a jet, that company's record applies.

Who checks it?

The Dutch Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate (ILT) issues the certificate under EASA rules, and the Netherlands holds the FAA's top 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 rating. 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. That audit does not cover the Dutch certificate, so oversight scores 86, our level for EU airlines without IOSA.

Before you fly Corendon from the Netherlands

• Read the flight code. CD flights on a PH- registered 737 MAX 9 are this airline; an XC or XR flight, or a jet with a TC- or 9H- registration, belongs to a sister.
• On Curaçao and Bonaire trips, expect World2Fly. The A350 is Spanish-operated; delays and rebooking still run through Corendon.
• For Egypt, check advice close to departure. Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh are core destinations, and government guidance for the Red Sea region changes quickly.

How we scored it

A clean accident record (90) and an all-new 737 MAX 9 fleet (90) carry the score. 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 (72) cost the most, mainly for the 2022 cable failure, and the holiday network scores 79. Overall 85.