By Elaine Hardcastle
July 16 (Reuters) - Turkish Airlines resumedflights from Istanbul's international airport on Saturdayfollowing a failed coup attempt while some foreign carrierscancelled weekend flights.
Forces loyal to Turkey's government fought on Saturday tocrush the last remnants of a military coup attempt. Televisionimages late Friday had shown tanks parked in front of theairport.
A spokesman for Turkish Airlines said flights had nowreturned to their normal schedule from Europe's third largesthub, though delays were to be expected.
Turkish budget carrier Pegasus said its flights were alsoexperiencing minor delays.
The closure of Istanbul's Ataturk Airport late on Friday hadcaused the diversion of 35 airplanes and cancelled 32 flights,Turkish Airlines chairman Ilker Ayci told broadcaster CNN Turk.
British Airways said in a statement it was haltingall flights to Turkey on Saturday and one on Sunday as aprecaution.
"The safety and security of our customers and crew arealways our top priority and we would never operate a flightunless it was safe to do so."
Over 2,500,000 British nationals visit Turkey every yearaccording to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
EasyJet said its advice from British authorities wasto continue flying, although it was monitoring developments.
The attempted coup follows a series of bombings that hitTurkey this year, including a suicide attack in June that killed45 people at Istanbul's main airport. They have weighed oninternational travel to the country.
The number of foreign visitors to Turkey fell by 28 percentin April, data showed on Friday, the biggest drop in 17 years.
The decline signals more pain for Turkey's economy, which issmarting from slowing exports and weak investment. Someeconomists have forecast that tourism revenue will drop by aquarter this year, costing around $8 billion.
German airline Lufthansa cancelled all its flightsto Istanbul and Ankara on Saturday and pared back the numberflights to holiday destinations Bodrum and Antalya.
TUI which owns the Thomson and First Choice holidaycompanies, said its flights to Dalaman, Antalya and Izmir wereoperating as normal.
Tour operator Thomas Cook said most German guests who hadbooked a holiday to Antalya or Bodrum had taken their flights onSaturday. It said flights from the UK were operating as normalbut, given the circumstances, free cancellations or amendmentswere possible for customers due to fly to Turkey this weekend.
Russia also suspended passenger flights to the country onthe orders of President Vladimir Putin, TASS news agency said.
Turkish and Russian officials had met this week to discussthe restarting of charter flights between the two countries andtourism security after relations soured following Turkey'sdowning of a Russian jet last year.
State airline EgyptAir also cancelled all flights onSaturday to Istanbul, the company said in a statement. Thecompany, which has 14 flights to Istanbul per week, did not saywhen they were expected to resume.
All flights from Istanbul to Sofia for Saturday had beencancelled, according to Sofia airport's website. (Additional reporting by David Dolan and Ayla Jean Yackley inIstanbul, Peter Maushagen in Frankfurt, Kate Holton in London,Eric Knecht in Cairo and Dmitry Solovyov in Moscow; Editing byDavid Evans)
easyJet (EZJ)
