MNG Airlines

When an Airbus freighter with a Turkish registration touches down at night in Cologne/Bonn or Leipzig/Halle, it’s worth a second look: there’s a good chance it’s an MNG Airlines aircraft. The cargo airline from Istanbul is one of the companies where you can still catch the classic A300-600 in regular service – and at the same time it is modernizing its fleet with A330 freighters and ordered A350Fs. This page shows you how to identify MNG with certainty and where your chances are best.

MNG Airlines at a glance

MNG Airlines is a Turkish all-cargo airline based in Istanbul. The full company name is MNG Havayolları ve Taşımacılık A.Ş., and in the market the company also appears as MNG Airlines Cargo. The three letters stand for the founder, Mehmet Nazif Günal, who created the airline in February 1996 as part of his group of companies.

MNG has its hub at Istanbul Airport. For a long time the airline was based at the old Atatürk Airport, before traffic moved to the new major airport on the Black Sea. From there MNG serves a network of scheduled and charter cargo flights to Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia. Cargo flights to North America, for example to New York JFK, come on top of that.

Unlike Turkish Airlines, whose cargo division is called Turkish Cargo, MNG is an independent private airline. For spotters the distinction matters: both fly Airbus freighters with TC- registrations out of Istanbul, but have different codes and liveries.

History: from the A300 to Hahn to the A350F order

Flight operations began on November 30, 1997. The first scheduled cargo flights went with an Airbus A300 three days a week to Frankfurt-Hahn and London Stansted. Germany was thus an important market for MNG from the start.

As early as 1998 the young airline took the leap across the Atlantic: a connection from Frankfurt to Toronto was the start, and from November 8, 1998 scheduled flights to the USA followed. In the following years MNG built up its own infrastructure on the ground, with bonded warehouses in Istanbul, Ankara and İzmir and a maintenance center in Ankara.

From 2002 MNG also tried its hand at the passenger business. The chapter stayed short: in 2006 the airline discontinued passenger flights and has focused entirely on cargo since. In 2005 MNG received an award from Airbus for the technical reliability of an A300 that was then about 30 years old – a sign of how long the airline keeps its freighters in service. In 2008 MNG took over the Slovenian cargo airline Solinair.

In 2020 MNG began twice-weekly cargo flights between Cologne/Bonn and New York JFK. In June 2025 the airline signed a letter of intent for two Airbus A350Fs at the Paris Air Show, and in October 2025 it became a firm order.

Year	Event
1996	Founded by Mehmet Nazif Günal
1997	First flight operations with the A300, including to Frankfurt-Hahn
1998	First transatlantic flights, scheduled service to the USA
2002–2006	Short chapter with passenger flights
2008	Takeover of the Slovenian Solinair
2020	Cargo flights Cologne/Bonn – New York JFK
2025	Firm order for two Airbus A350Fs

Codes and callsign

• IATA code MB: appears in flight numbers and on air waybills. You’ll hardly see it on departure boards, because cargo flights rarely show up there.
• ICAO code MNB: appears in the air traffic control flight plan and on flight trackers. For spotters it is the most important identifier.
• Callsign BLACK SEA: this is how the crew checks in on the radio. If you stand at the fence with a scanner, you hear “Black Sea” rather than “MNG”.

With cargo airlines in particular, it pays to check the ICAO code, because some aircraft fly for other companies and wear their colors. How flight number and callsign relate is explained in the article on the difference between callsign and flight number. An introduction to the code systems is in IATA and ICAO codes explained.

The fleet: Airbus from the A300 to the A330

MNG has been an Airbus airline since day one. According to a fleet overview from mid-2025, MNG operated eleven freighters across four types; an overview from August 2025 lists only nine, including a single A300-600. The numbers fluctuate with lease agreements and retirements, so read them as a snapshot.

Type	Number (mid-2025)	Role	Spotter tip
Airbus A330-300P2F	4	Backbone of medium and long haul	Converted passenger jet, long fuselage
Airbus A300-600F	1–3 (depending on source)	Classic medium-haul freighter, numbers shrinking	One most recently flew for DHL
Airbus A330-200F	2	Factory-built freighter	Bulge under the nose
Airbus A321P2F	2	Smaller cargo volumes, express	Narrowbody with cargo door at front left
Airbus A350F	2 on order	Next widebody freighter	Airbus deliveries planned from 2027

A300-600: the classic

The A300-600 freighter is the type MNG grew up with. Even the first flight in 1997 was with an A300. The A300 was the very first widebody from Airbus, and as a freighter it remains in service with some airlines to this day. According to the 2023 data, an A300-600RF at MNG carries around 47 tonnes. Because fewer and fewer A300s fly worldwide and MNG has also reduced its numbers considerably in recent years, every sighting is a small highlight for many collectors. You can read more about the passenger base model on the page for the Airbus A300-600.

A330 freighters: the backbone

The A330 has taken over from the A300 in terms of volume. MNG operates two variants: the factory-built A330-200F and converted A330-300s (P2F, passenger-to-freighter). The A330-200F has a typical feature: because the nose gear of a passenger A330 would tilt the nose down, on the freighter it sits in a fairing under the fuselage that you recognize as a bulge. That way the fuselage sits level on the ground. The A330-300P2F lacks this bump, but its fuselage is longer. If you want to tell the A330 and A340 apart, the article Telling the A330 and A340 apart can help.

A321P2F: the small one

The two A321 conversion freighters are the only narrowbody aircraft in the fleet. They carry noticeably less than the widebody freighters and thus suit express cargo and smaller markets. You recognize them by the large cargo door at the front on the left side and the closed-off windows.

A350F: the next step

With the order for two A350Fs, MNG is betting on Airbus’s new widebody freighter. MNG and Airbus describe the type as a central building block of the coming MNG fleet. According to Airbus, A350F deliveries begin in the second half of 2027; there is no public fixed date for MNG.

How to recognize MNG Airlines

Most aircraft wear the house livery with MNG titles. There are exceptions, though: at least one A300-600 flies on behalf of DHL and is then operating in the DHL Aviation network. You can’t reliably recognize such aircraft by color, but by registration and ICAO code.

What the letters after the country prefix mean and how to follow an aircraft by registration is explained in the article Understanding aircraft registrations.

Spotting MNG Airlines

Istanbul

At the Istanbul hub you have the widest selection: this is where the MNG freighters take off and land, and with Turkish Cargo and ULS Airlines Cargo you see other Turkish cargo airlines right alongside for comparison. Where to find good locations there is shown in the guide Plane spotting in Istanbul. Important: Turkey has its own rules for photographing at airports. Be sure to read the overview of photographing at airports in Turkey before your trip.

Cologne/Bonn

Cologne/Bonn is one of the major cargo airports in Germany and one of the places where MNG has been showing up for years – the connection to New York JFK also started from here in 2020. An overview of the airport is on the page for Cologne/Bonn Airport, and the entry for the observation deck at Cologne/Bonn Airport describes an official vantage point. More tips are in the guide Plane spotting in Cologne/Bonn.

Leipzig/Halle

Leipzig/Halle is also one of MNG’s German destinations. The airport lives largely on night cargo traffic around the DHL hub. There, besides MNG, you also see AeroLogic and European Air Transport Leipzig. The starting point is the observation deck at Leipzig/Halle Airport; more in the guide Plane spotting in Leipzig/Halle.

MNG compared

Airline	Home	Typical aircraft	Feature
MNG Airlines	Istanbul	A300-600F, A330F, A321P2F	Private cargo airline, A350F on order
ULS Airlines Cargo	Istanbul	Airbus freighters	Another Turkish all-cargo airline
Turkish Airlines (Turkish Cargo)	Istanbul	Widebody freighters of various types	Cargo division of the state airline
AeroLogic	Leipzig/Halle	Boeing 777F	Joint venture of DHL and Lufthansa Cargo

It’s also interesting to look beyond Turkey: with AeroUnion in Mexico there is another cargo airline that relies on the A300, and Avianca Cargo also flies A330 freighters. How the big parcel carriers work with partner airlines is explained in the article on the express integrators DHL, FedEx and UPS.

Common mix-ups

• Taking MNG for the cargo division of Turkish Airlines – MNG is independent and private, Turkish Cargo belongs to Turkish Airlines.
• Confusing MNG with ULS – both are Turkish cargo airlines with Airbus freighters, but with different codes.
• Assigning every DHL A300 to DHL itself – at least one MNG A300 operated on behalf of DHL.
• Automatically assigning a 777F with a TC- registration to MNG – according to the fleet overviews reviewed, MNG does not fly a 777F.
• Confusing the A330-200F and A330-300P2F – the nose bulge under the fuselage gives away the factory-built freighter.

Conclusion

MNG Airlines is a cargo airline that spotters like to overlook – wrongly. It has flown Airbus freighters for almost three decades, keeps a true classic alive with the A300-600 and is already preparing the next step with the A350F. If you note the registration and ICAO code in Cologne/Bonn, Leipzig/Halle or Istanbul, you classify every sighting cleanly and can collect your way through the manageable fleet piece by piece.