The Federal Aviation Administration has lifted the ban on flights from Turkey coming to the United States. The ban was put in place early Saturday morning following the coup attempt on Friday night. It prohibited all flights from Turkey to the United States, including those with a stopover, and also prohibited US airlines from flying into Turkey.
When the ban was announced it also included promise of a review in one month’s time, but the expectation was that the review would come much more quickly than that and it has. Turkish Airlines, the only carrier affected by the ban, will now be able to resume flights to the USA from its hub at Istanbul‘s Ataturk airport. The airport was the scene of some of the more incredible images during the coup attempt, including ones showing people walking on the apron outside in the “secure” portion of the field. Apparently US authorities are now satisfied that security measures have been properly reinstated.
As is typical in such cases there was no formal announcement that the NOTAM was pulled; it simply disappeared from the list of published alerts for pilots.
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