TK981 was scheduled to fly from Istanbul to London Heathrow, with a stop in Paris Orly airport. The first leg from IST to ORY went smoothly, with a flying time of four hours. While the ORY-LHR leg usually did not attract many passengers, an ongoing strike by British European Airlines employees meant that the economy cabin was full, with the aircraft originally 167 passengers and 11 crew members for the first leg, 50 disembarked, and 218 more pasengers boarded. The flight departed at 12:32 PM local time.