As the wheels touched down on the tarmac on Saturday, Dallas became the second destination in the Lone Star State to be connected directly to Istanbul via Turkey's flag carrier, Turkish Airlines.

The carrier's other destination in Texas is Houston, a route that it has been operating since 2013.

In a statement, the airline underlined that it continues to enhance its flight network with the addition to its U.S. destinations, which it said now numbers 11 after its Dallas flights began on Friday.

Turkish Airlines currently operates four flights a week – Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday – to Dallas' Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) with next-generation wide-body Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft.

Dallas, the fourth largest metropolitan area in the U.S., became an important industrial, cultural, and commercial center in the southern U.S. with the discovery of oil in the 1930s.