I spent the weekend in Germany and decided I will return to California in a different way than my usual United Polaris or Lufthansa First Class. This time, I’m trying two new products on Turkish Airlines.
Turkish Airlines Last-Minute Award Space
It seems that Turkish rarely (if ever) opens up last-minute award space to Los Angeles or San Francisco, but I wasn’t looking for that–I’ve already reviewed the 777-300ER in business class.
Instead, I was looking for award space on one route: Istanbul – Atlanta. That is the first U.S. route Turkish has deployed its new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners on. For many months I’ve been wanting to try that product and offer a comprehensive review of the new Turkish Airlines lounges in Istanbul.
Turkish also flies the 787-9 to Mexico City and Bogota, but those flights depart overnight and I prefer daytime flights in order to capture the best photographs onboard.
Thankfully, Turkish released award seats on the Atlanta flight a few days before departure and I booked myself using Aeroplan miles, routing from Frankfurt to Atlanta via Istanbul. I even added onward domestic connections on United and the award priced out at 55K miles plus about $110 in taxes/fees…an exceptional value.
As an added bonus, my flight from Frankfurt to Istanbul will be operated by an A321neo, which features a new business class seat (which actually looks a bit like Delta’s new narrowbody first class seat).
So stay tuned for updates on Turkish Airlines and a long layover in Istanbul this week.
Meanwhile, my business partner thinks I am a fool not to fly Lufthansa First Class with him. He may be right…I’ll be away two days longer than he will…but I am so excited to finally get a chance to try Turkish Airlines’ new business class seat!
Flew ATL-IST-LIS on the 789 and the A321neo last month. Primarily over the last 5 years I’ve been flying either TK or QR going to and from Iraq. I didn’t enjoy either TK flight this time and it almost seemed like the FA’s were, just barely, going through the motions.
Had seats 4K and 1K on the 789 and didn’t care for it at all. 1K, though it does have a large storage area, the lights from the galley are bothersome and stayed on the entire flight back to ATL and the crew kept leaving the curtain open. I didn’t enjoy either flight on the 789. I also found the seating area cramped and the “true” window seats have an awkward barrier that partially blocks the window. Seems to me that I’m not the only one to dislike these seats as TK is reportedly going to go a different route with their other 789’s, according to reports.
The neo seemed fine enough, nothing special.
Something just seemed off about all of the flights.
Could you tell us more about the window seat and lack of view?
“I will return[…] in a different way than my usual United Polaris or Lufthansa First Class”
^must be nice
Looking very much forward to your review. I am contemplating to either book ORD-IST direct on the 777-300 or to position to Montreal, DC or Atlanta for the 787. Please let me know if you consider the new biz to be a significant improvement over the old one. I’ve generally heard good reviews about the 777-300 biz, despite the aged hard product, whereas the 787 seems to get mixed reviews and the biggest complaint being that the seat feels tight and cramped and thus isn’t as good for sleeping.
I flew the ATL-IST flight a few weeks ago. First time on Turkish. The experience was solid but not outstanding. The foot cubby is a little tight, IMO. The crew were good but seemed a touch off somehow, almost distracted. Food was good but otherwise unremarkable. I loved the lounge in pretty much every way. It’ll be interesting to see your take.
For your onward united connections, were you able to book them together with the FRA-IST-ATL flights on the aeroplan site? Or did you have to call in to manually add them on?
Called in. 2.5hrs on hold…
Have done the TK 787. Give me the old seats on the 777 and 330 any time.
Recently did 4 flights on the 330 and they were all perfectly comfortable.
As long as it is not a middle on the 777!
Just reserve the seat while booking. On flights where I have the 777 I see middle seats are often empty or they stick upgraded EC’s in there.
I wouldn’t bank too much on getting an A21N between FRA-IST.
TK seem to be using both the A21N and A321 completely interchangeably on the routes they operate with it and nothing is guaranteed – last night the two evening services to LHR were both A321s, tonight one is an A321 and one is a A21N, some nights both are A21Ns. Until your inbound is in the air I wouldn’t believe anything about what you are flying on. Just hope it’s not in the TC-JR* series otherwise it’s Euro Business converter seats. If the seats in business are AC DF it’s a TC-JR*, otherwise you will see AB EF for anything with their business cabin.
That said, while the Neos are quieter the seats TK are using are a bit harder and slightly tighter, some argue that there is more privacy but this is a shorthaul service and privacy is not an issue for me.