Vintage Review: Turkish Airlines 737-700 Business Class Munich To Istanbul + Aircraft Museum In Munich

This week we are taking a walk down memory lane with a vintage first class trip report. I’m sharing photos and brief commentary from a trip I took in the final days of 2010 and first days of 2011 that included many first class flights from five Star Alliance carriers. As we enter a new decade, the goal of this trip report is to examine how airlines have changed over the last one. Although this trip report has never been published, I will not be publishing a detailed, word-heavy review as I do for current trip reports. Instead, commentary will be limited and the focus will be on photos. For the final post, I will summarize, as generally as I can, how premium products have changed over the last decade.

• Prior Segments
  • United Airlines 757-200 First Class Los Angeles to Chicago
  • Lufthansa A340-300 First Class Chicago To Munich

Flight #3: Turkish Airlines 737-700 Business Class Munich To Istanbul

• We had an all-day layover in Munich and checked out the airpark on the airpot premises, that included a Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation, former Douglas DC-3 from SWISS, and Junkers Ju 52.
• The “old” first class lounge remains essentially identical today to what it looked like in 2010.
  • Full review here (plus a review of the new first class lounge here)
• The Turkish 737-700 did not have “real” business class seats – just a coach seats with a blocked middle.
• Most of the Turkish fleet today has “real” business class seats in a 2-2 configuration on its narrow body aircraft.
• Dinner included a fish appetizer, cheese and olives, a small salad, and apple strudel cake on the first platter.
• The main course was white fish covered in eggplant, tomato, and pepper, served with rice.
• The other choice was beef kabobs
• No menus were distributed: Turkish now distributes menu on even the shortest flights in business class and often economy class
• Service onboard was courteous, but not friendly – I felt the language barrier contributed to this.
• We landed late in Istanbul, despite having taken off on time.