Turkish Airlines

✅ Trip Verified | Frankfurt to Ankara. Checked in well in advance as I was connecting from an overseas flight. The agent had difficulty locating my reservation despite having been presented with an electronic boarding pass and my passport. At the gate, boarded with the priority group given my status on Star Alliance. On board, the hard product looked good and with the exception of my audio jack the seat functions worked well. Following take off we were offered lunch with two options for main course. The food was tasty for economy class and the portions were OK. Several beverage choices including beer, wine and spirits were offered. The IFE had a glitch where every movie choice was directed to the wrong film each time. The seat was comfortable enough for economy. The flight pushed back and landed on time. I have taken multiple international and domestic flights with TK in recent years and as with my previous flights, this one had passengers standing up and walking to the front of the aircraft while taxiing. The FA’s did not force them back to their seats and simply replayed the pre-recorded safety message. As a result, the plane taxied for about 10 minutes with several passengers standing in the aisle and opening overhead bins risking the safety of others around them. Whilst most of my on board experience has been pleasant with TK I am appalled to see that their FA’s do not enforce the most basic safety rules and simply ignore violations. This is a very concerning display of TK’s safety culture and raises questions about the rest of their operations.

✅ Trip Verified | Ankara to Amsterdam via Istanbul. After a mediocre Business class flight to Turkey with them, we decided to stay at Economy for our flight back. The IFE is pretty good and worked well for me. Food and drinks are also okay. However cabin service was way too slow for a very short ESB-IST flight which over-hastened the eat and drink joy for half of the plane. IST-AMS service was alright, although the food quality is drastically decreasing. Their ground service and staff have major setbacks everywhere, only getting worse. Also, the seat pitch for both flights were literally terrible - barely 30 inches each. Their economy seat pitch does not put them above the category of low-cost carriers. They used to be my favorite airline, not anymore. I no longer prefer them if I have another major airline option on any route.

✅ Trip Verified | San Francisco to Mashhad via Istanbul. Worst airline ever! I bought the tickets 6 months in advance. After two months they send me a text message that the connection flight (second flight) has been canceled! The customer service representative told me that we often cancel the flight because of the weather or technical issues! How come you can predict weather and technical issues 6 months ahead! I asked them what will happen if at the airport they do not give me accommodation. Guess what is the response; "We can not guarantee the hotel, we are sorry!" You can cancel the ticket whenever you want but you can not provide accommodation - this is not customer service.

Not Verified | Amsterdam via Istanbul to Havana return. I'm really satisfied with the overall performance of THY. The seat pitch is quite good. A lot of choices and a very good responsive personal entertainment system, the food is really good and the quantity of the food they offered you is certainly enough. You receive an amenity kit on the long haul flight, which is a nice touch. There is live television and WiFi on board, but the Wifi was quite expensive. The live television worked perfect, I could watch a live soccer match! Downside is that the crew sometimes a bit tired looks and act. The layover in Istanbul is a bit chaotic. My bags arrived in Havana and also on the way back in Amsterdam. My conclusion is that Turkish Airlines offers a good product, when you compare it with the price. I would choose them again and can recommend them.

Not Verified | Dublin to Phuket via Istanbul. Boarding queuing up everyone in the queue for a while they decided to call rows out we were nearly first going in and nearly last by the end not a good start, went down hill from there on.  Seats mixed up even though we asked for certain seats luckily some people swapped with us - we asked one one of the staff could they please sort the seats out, they didn't care. We had to do it ourself as we have 2 small daughters not sitting beside us. Nothing for kids no kids menu or kids toys or colouring books to keep them entertained for the flights. .The staff from Istanbul to Phuket were the worst most miserable people we have ever came across on a flight. Spilling drinks on customers not smiling didn't want to be there. Turkish have a long way to go to catch up with other airlines. Food was only ok nothing special. Plane was quite old looking, business class looked nothing special. Overall very disappointing going over and back.

✅ Trip Verified | Amsterdam to Ankara via Istanbul. Turkish Airlines is a difficult airline to review with varying ups and downs. Business cabin is pretty good with comfortable seating but without an all-aisle access layout that misses window seats for this. IFE screen size and selection is very good but there was a problem with my system which had to be rebooted for 3 times and I could only start a movie near the end of the flight, and I could not finish of course. Although not perfect, cabin service is good, but ground service is undeniably terrible. I barely could catch my transit flight after a very long, chaotic and totally unassisted sweaty rush from one side of Ataturk Airport to the other. Many airlines, mostly from Asia, set the bar to a very high level recently which clearly pushes Turkish into a way lower tier for such treats. I would not pay a dime extra for Business and straightly prefer Economy class with this airlines, especially for short and mid hauls.

✅ Trip Verified | Istanbul to Beirut. My flight with Turkish airlines was my worst experience ever. We were a group of 6 people travelling together and it happened that we faced many problems due to the disorganization of the airport and the airline. To start with, we arrived about 2 hours and a half earlier than our flight to the airport. We had to wait like more than half an hour for the passport control due to the congestion, noting that not all counters were available. Then, the staff were shouting on us to remove our shoes and get in the scanner machine and all do not speak English so we had many difficulties to understand what they want. How come that an international airport has only Turkish speaking staff, and rude staff. Next, we went to check in with tax refund process, and here, in this airport happens what does not happen in any airport in the world: They need to check your baggage, you have to open and search for the items in the airport in order to have your invoices stamped. What a shame. We got delayed due to this process, but still we were safe and on time. Due to the disorganization and the non helpful staff who were shouting on us and telling us to move faster when scanning our items, we lost a cell phone. We were told we had to go to the lost and found office and everyone you ask in this airport tells you to go in wrong directions so we got lost. We lost lots of time and we arrived at the gate 15 mins earlier, after running miles and miles to reach our gate after 15 mins of running. The staff taking care of checking passports was still available in the gate but refused to check our passports since boarding had ended 2 mins ago. We had to buy new tickets, even though we were at the airport and we checked in on time. Concerning Turkish airlines, we were told that we had to pay only the fare rates which is not too much because we are transferring our tickets, and we were surprised to know that the fare rates were higher than a brand new ticket. So we bought new tickets for all of us. Also to mention that we were told by the transfer desk of Turkish airlines and by the sales office of Turkish airlines that our bags were unloaded and they will be transferred to our new ticket. However, our bags arrived to Beirut with the flight that we missed, and when we were complaining about our bags they did not help us and were insisting that the bags are still in Turkey, till we showed them the pictures of our bags with our parents in Beirut, who managed to take them from Beirut international airport. This was my worst flight ever, I didn't receive any help from anyone in the airport and anyone from the Turkish Airline staff, but I was always told wrong information and sent in wrong directions and even my bags were not organized to stay and arrive with my new flight. This flight and this airport is never to be recommended.

Not Verified | Manchester to Manila via Istanbul. Really poor service, handed a menu but never allowed a choice. Very slow service because 3 in business class and 2 in economy. The security in Istanbul was horrible. Frisk constantly and 5 checks before boarding.

✅ Trip Verified | London to Kigali via Istanbul. This airline customer service team let’s it down. If you have any issues, they simply won’t help you. Before, during or after the flight. If you complain they simply don’t respond and if they do it’s a very blunt rude answer. I tried reaching out to this airline via Facebook, phone, email and linked in and they actually ignored me. This airline tried to charge me £27 per extra kg when I told them I was taking donations across for kids in Uganda. My friends luggage got lost and they offered him nothing and didn’t return any of his emails or calls whilst we were away! Airline service is average but even if it was ok I could never fly with this airline again because of how they regard their customers. Food was ok, seat room was decent. WiFi didn’t work.

Not Verified | I flew from Izmir to Montreal via Istanbul on Turkish Airlines. I hadn't flown Turkish in 4 years, and was a little worried because of some of the reviews I have read. I had nothing to worry about. The flight was excellent from Izmir to Istanbul on a B777, even time for a small sandwich and coffee on the 1 hour flight. As usual, not enough gates at Ataturk airport, and we were bussed to the domestic terminal. This should be a thing of the past when Turkish Airlines moves to the New Istanbul Airport in early January 2019. A quick walk over to the International terminal and then boarded my flight to Montreal on a A330-300. The flight crew was excellent and had a good grasp of english. They were friendly and helpful. The infotainment system on Turkish is excellent with a wide assortment of movies, tv shows, and I loved the live TV. Two very tasty meals, a good selection of drinks, and snacks available in the galley throughout the flight. The restrooms were kept clean throughout the flight as I could see the flight attendants checking them often and cleaning if needed. The return flights were the same, excellent staff, bathrooms kept clean, food was very tasty. The only downside was having to be bussed to the International Terminal at Ataturk and it was pouring rain, the stairs had no cover. One of my bags didn't make the transfer to Izmir in Istanbul, but I reported it to Turkish Ground Services in Izmir, and it was promptly delivered the next morning. Again, this problem should be solved when the move to the New Istanbul Airport happens hopefully in early January 2019.