Tailwind Airlines

Is Tailwind Airlines safe?

Yes, with one clear weak point. Tailwind, a Turkish charter airline based at Antalya and Istanbul, has no accident and no written-off aircraft in the Aviation Safety Network records, it passes the IATA safety audit, and its regulator holds the top FAA rating. We score it 77. The catch is the aircraft: most of its small fleet are Boeing 737-400s built in the mid-1990s, among the oldest passenger jets still flying to Western Europe.

Few people book Tailwind directly. Its seats are sold through tour operators on holiday flights between Antalya and cities in Germany, Switzerland and Central and Eastern Europe, and it rents aircraft with crews to other airlines. The AeroInside record shows it flying for Tunisair, Corendon and SunExpress, and in summer 2026 for Air Montenegro.

How old are Tailwind's planes?

Old. Tailwind publishes no fleet list, but the Boeing 737-400 it wet-leased to Air Montenegro in July 2026 was 31 years old, and 737-400s registered TC-TLA to TC-TLE have formed the core of the fleet for years. The 737-400 is a 1980s design with older cockpit systems and engines than today's jets.

The airline is slowly moving on. In July 2023 it took its first Boeing 737-800 since 2016: TC-TLI, an ex-Oman Air jet that was 14 years old, leased from Carlyle Aviation, followed by a second one, TC-TLJ (ch-aviation). At the end of 2025 Tailwind said a third 737-800 would join at the start of the 2026 season and that it wants at least seven aircraft by the end of 2027 (Aero Haber). It also said it was joining the AMAC Aerospace group, which would give it maintenance, repair and modification support in-house.

Age alone does not make an aircraft unsafe if it is maintained to the rules. But older systems fail more often, and that shows in Tailwind's incident list. Fleet scores 45, the same as Jordan Aviation, another 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-audited charter airline with no current-generation aircraft.

What went wrong over Bulgaria in 2018?

On 11 March 2018, a Tailwind 737-400 flying for Corendon from Antalya to Zurich with 96 people on board was climbing from 32,000 to 34,000 feet east of Sofia when the cabin altitude alarm went off. The cabin was climbing at about 4,000 feet a minute. The pilots put on their oxygen masks, tried to close the outflow valve by hand without success, and made an emergency descent to 13,000 feet in about five minutes. The passenger masks dropped, and passengers reported ear pain. The crew landed normally at Sofia.

Bulgaria's investigators called it a serious incident. They found that the heater of the outflow valve seal had failed, the valve had probably iced up and could not move, and a safety relief valve then stuck open. The crew handled it by the book. The cause was a component failure on an ageing aircraft, and it is the main reason incidents score 72.

The later events were smaller, and each ended with a safe landing:

• Antalya, August 2022. A 737-400 bound for Zurich returned after an engine showed high vibration and rising temperatures.
• Bucharest, September 2023. A 737-400 from Antalya to Prague diverted after the crew suspected a fuel leak.
• Münster, July 2025. A 737-800 flying for SunExpress returned when the cabin would not pressurise in the climb.

Older events fall outside our 10-year window. The most notable was at Lyon in September 2010, when a Tailwind 737-400 flying for Tunisair descended below the minimum safe altitude on a non-precision approach and the tower ordered a go-around.

Oversight and audits

Here Tailwind scores like Türkiye's bigger airlines. It is on IATA's member list, which requires IOSA registrationIOSAThe 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, the same audit that Pegasus and SunExpress pass. Türkiye holds FAA 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, and no Turkish airline is on the EU Air Safety ListEU Air Safety ListThe European Commission's list of airlines banned or restricted from flying in EU airspace because they do not meet international safety standards.More in the glossary. We give it 80, the same as the other Turkish airlines: Türkiye sits outside EASA, and its accident investigation board publishes few reports, so a quiet Turkish record says less than a European one.

Where it flies

Most Tailwind flights are holiday routes between Antalya and well-equipped airports in Europe. The harder part is wet-lease work, where crews fly another airline's schedule from unfamiliar bases at short notice, as in Montenegro in 2026. That puts the environment at 76, below SunExpress (82), which flies its own scheduled network.

How to fly Tailwind safely

• Check who operates your flight. A tour operator booking or another airline's ticket may show "operated by Tailwind". A TC-TL registration on a flight tracker means it is Tailwind's aircraft and crew.
• Count the rows to your nearest exit. Seat layouts differ between Tailwind's 737-400s and 737-800s, and on a charter the aircraft can change at short notice.
• Keep your seat belt fastened whenever you are seated. In a sudden pressure loss like the one over Bulgaria, put your own oxygen mask on first and pull it down firmly; the oxygen flows even if the bag does not inflate.

How we scored it

The accident record (90) carries Tailwind: no accident in over 15 years, though on a small fleet. Oversight (80) matches the other 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-audited Turkish airlines. The fleet (45) is the weakest factor, and the 2018 emergency descent and later technical returns keep incidents at 72.