Turkish Airlines

JNB-IST-WAW 13 and 14th Feb. Flights on time. Metal was A330 and A321 respectively. The long haul was excellent with many food and drink choices. Wines from 4-5 continents ranging from rose champagne red and whites selected from within a wide range just to my taste. FA attendants were frequent and respectful. IFE maybe the best I've seen and easy to operate. Huge monitors. Bed not fully lie flat so I actually turned around and laid my head on the stool and slept better with my legs in slight upward position. Night-kit given was boring and superfluous. Check-in at transit in JNB only possible 3 hours prior to departure. However was allowed through security without boarding cards as to kill time in the SAA-lounges. When the check in lady eventually appeared at transit she was professional and kind and managed even to trace my luggage and give it an additional (needed) label so I could transfer it throughout. The corresponding luggage receipt was smoothly given to me as I entered the stairs boarding the aircraft. The lounge in IST was extended with a huge under-deck 3 days ago and is a world-class positive experience in design space beauty and service provided. IST-WAW on Airbus 321-200. Not business class seat but ordinary economy with tabled middle seat to increase space in the 3x3 configuration. IFE on small ceiling monitors were useless. Staff were alert and kind. As usual for TK one was dressed up pretending to be a cook despite we were only 4 pax in business out of 12 possible. Food very good varied and wide options inc. of individual cheese plates deserts etc. Even champagne was offered on this European flight of a duration of only 2+ hours.

HEL-IST-TLV 19 Feb. Fog in IST kept us delayed in HEL for 3 hours. Updates from gate agents left much to be desired. 45 minutes circling the foggy airport not a nice feeling but eventually landed safely. Next flight to TLV delayed 4 hours. No gate personnel present until boarding. No amenities offered. HEL-IST A319 with no IFE at all. Crew friendly and nice meal/bar service. Generous with alcohol. IST-TLV A321 with IFE at every seat. Leg room a disaster compared to other TK a/c. Again all female crew friendly nice food. I also noticed that on all 4 flights the aircraft's were never air-conditioned. It meant sitting in a very warm stuffy and crowded plane until they were ready to go. Not a very welcoming environment. All in all good service. Will fly again.

AMS-IST: I was on the wing. This section has to do with 1 less FA than in the back. My warm meal arrived cold. KIX-IST: Like on the outbound flight a sense of disorganization during 1st meal service. One FA was running back and forth. Good on-time performance.

TLV-IST-HEL. TLV to IST B737-800 great leg room leather seats no personal IFE. The crew were nice handed out heart shaped chocolates for Valentines Day. They managed to serve breakfast on this short flight and a bar service. The only bad remark cabin very hot during boarding terrible welcome. It got better as we took off. Remote parking in IST bussed to terminal. Security much quicker than expected. Departure area crowded and stuffy as usual. Again boarded A321 steaming hot. This time legroom was atrocious could not move or eat? The B737-800 felt like business class compared to this torture. Crew friendly and hard working full hot meal service wine beer and alcohol were free. This time personal IFE. Product seems inconsistent. All in all a positive experience.

Attempted to fly from Istanbul to Bangkok on Nov 29th but flight was delayed 5.5 hrs. No explanations given. No compensation despite delays. On-board entertainment was not properly working at my seat. Was too tired anyway. Pretty bad experience. Return flight was better (on time at least).

IST-EZE GRU-IST Economy. I am a frequent flyer with TK (Elite) and there are many things I like about TK but the biggest problem of this airline is consistency. Some flights are excellent while others are just a horrible experience. This happened with my flights to EZE and back from GRU. The plane on both legs was awful. Under each seat there is a big metal box which makes it unbearable in combination with the tight legroom. Overall the plane seemed old and not taken care of. It had not been cleaned properly before departure. The staff were not attentive forgetting my requests. On the return flight there was no menu no hot towel no fresh orange juice. The temperature during the flight - freezing. The lounge in GRU is a joke. The good TAM lounge is closed at night and they use the Smiles lounge which is simply not acceptable. Ground handling poor - my priority has not been recognized at baggage delivery and for the return flight the check in staff didn't attach the priority label at all. All in all if I only took this one flight and judged TK based on this experience I would definitely not recommend this airline.

9th Feb TK70. We purchased our tickets from London to Istanbul and then from Istanbul on to Hong Kong almost as soon as they were released 11 months before we were due to travel. Perhaps because we booked through an online travel agent we were not offered seat selection at that point. We didn't worry too much because we assumed that the airlines default position would be to sit a couple together and after all we had booked very early. This turned out to be a naive assumption! When we attempted to check in online which was more than 36 hours before the Istanbul to Hong Kong flight the only seats available were at opposite ends of the cabin. Our pleas to the Turkish airlines office in London the check in desk at Gatwick and the transfer desk at Istanbul were all to no avail. This completely ruined the flight for me whilst I respect that the airline couldn't bump someone from a pre booked seat we should have been sat together by default at point of booking.

737-900. Although we were delayed 4 hours in Manchester due to high winds (not a problem) we had a lovely smooth flight the business class seats on this plane are excellent plenty of room and fully reclining. Very good service once seated a glass of juice or wine was offered then a lovely salmon salad later a choice of chicken beef or macaroni - plenty to eat and wines excellent. Turkish or French wines offered plus liqueurs. Entertainment first class.

Flew CPH-IST-Bombay mid December 2013. One more good experience with THY all flights on time and service as expected good. No other European carrier serves this amount of meals on intraeuropean flights and service about the same on intercontinental. As a regular flyer on THY in recent years I would recommend changing the meals a little - on all 4 flights food was the same as before always delicious but perhaps a little tired compared to some years ago. Beverage service excellent and although staff of THY are not very smiley they were effective. Inflight entertainment good with good selection of movies both older and recently published. Transfer in IST chaotic on way out very smooth on return flight. Again I can recommend THY for both service costs and extensive route network.

Flew to Muscat via Istanbul and returned a month later. Very pleasant experience. Take off and landing super. Took advantage of tour of Istanbul and the use of the hotel on our return leg. Food good. However the ground crew not friendly at all but cabin crew were superb.