Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles - Great job TK on 31 January

I understand that many travellers had to suffer from cancellations and delays due to bad weather over the last couple of days, especially 30 January. According to Turkish newspapers the worst winter in 33 years.

However, I would like to congratulate TK for the great job they did on 31 January. After many cancellations and huge delays on 30 January, they managed to get back to almost normal schedule on 31 January, although the weather didn't really improve a lot.

I was flying ZRH-IST-SGN departing on the evening flight from ZRH. The Zurich flight was on time. The IST-BKK-SGN was boarding on time, then got delayed due to waiting times for deicing by 1 hour. Yes, deicing was definitely needed, a couple of centimeters of snow and ice had accumulated on the wings and body of the aircraft and it was still snowing at -3°C. They made up 20 mins into BKK, 20mins on ground in BKK and another 15mins en route to SGN. So SGN arrival was only 5mins late, i.e. ontime according to the convention (and also in my personal view).

That's why I really would like to complement TK. They did a great job both on the ZRH and the SGN flight. I know, some have suffered from delays, but observing the monitors in IST, it looked like they really got their act together in a very difficult weather situation. :)

I flew through IST on Monday 30 Jan.
I arrived from BKK at 04:30 which is about 1 hr ahead of schedule which was great.
At that time the weather was not too bad and only a small layer of snow was on the ground.
Arrived in the lounge and noticed that my connecting flight out of IST was already cancelled.
Lounge staff informed that i was already rebooked on the next flight which would leave at 14:30.
From about 06:00 the weather really started to get bad with massive snow storms and only about 50 mtr visibility.
Eventually i boarded the plane around 15:30 and we had to wait for connecting passengers for about 1 hr.
After this i hr wait for deicing and liftoff was around 18:00.
I think that TK handled the situation as best as they could do in this situation.
The big bottle neck in my opinion is the ground staff and specially the deicing system which created a massive backlog of waiting planes.
Looks like that they are up to the task or where overwhelmed by the bead weather conditions. ( maybe bad planning )

Agree that de-icing was the bottle neck - it is operated by TAV not TK. But compared to say LHR delays were minimal. In Nov 10 LHR shut both runways down for 24hrs and one for 5 days with the same amount of snow. IST kept runways open most of the time.

Some flights out of IST this morning; TK had to cancel hundred of flights over the last few days as Turkey is battling with one of the most severe winter conditions in recent memory. I am happy for our fellow posters above for their relative smooth experience, but it hasn't been easy for most pax. AFAIK, DHMI (State Authority For Airport Management) has been good in keeping the runways open but the de-icing arrangements by TGS/Havas/Celebi has not been well co-ordinated as mentioned earlier resulting in long queues for a/c. Also many problems with baggages. Hopefully, the weather situation should be improving on Friday or Saturday.

STAD FLIGHT DESTINATION STATUS
23:35 TK324 ASHGABAT 8:45 HRS DELAYED
05:00 IA224 BAGHDAD GATE CLOSED
05:30 Y97163 TEHRAN GATE CLOSED
07:35 US5014 MUNICH CANCELLED
07:35 UA7771 MUNICH CANCELLED
07:35 TK1629 MUNICH CANCELLED
07:35 TP8846 MUNICH CANCELLED
07:35 LH7071 MUNICH CANCELLED
07:40 TK465 ODESSA 40 MIN DELAYED
07:40 TK784 TEL AVIV CANCELLED
07:40 TK1975 DUBLIN GATE CLOSED
07:40 VV4165 ODESSA 40 MIN DELAYED
07:45 UA7769 ZURICH GATE CLOSED
07:45 LX4321 ZURICH GATE CLOSED
07:45 TK1907 ZURICH GATE CLOSED
07:45 TK1553 HANNOVER CANCELLED
07:45 TK1821 PARIS-CDG CANCELLED
07:50 TK1937 BRUSSELS CANCELLED
07:50 TK332 BAKU CANCELLED
07:50 TK1701 STUTTGART CANCELLED
07:55 TK1951 AMSTERDAM GATE CLOSED
07:55 TK1867 VENICE CANCELLED
07:55 LX4331 GENEVA CANCELLED
07:55 TK1917 GENEVA CANCELLED
08:05 TK1523 DUSSELDORF CANCELLED
08:05 LH7077 DUSSELDORF CANCELLED
08:05 TK1845 ATHENS GATE CLOSED
08:10 TK1661 HAMBURG CANCELLED
08:10 TK1979 LONDON-LHR LAST CALL
08:10 JK9165 MADRID CANCELLED
08:10 TK1857 MADRID CANCELLED
08:10 TP8836 MADRID CANCELLED
08:15 TK1873 MILAN CANCELLED
08:15 TK1993 MANCHESTER LAST CALL
08:15 TK1587 FRANKFURT CANCELLED
08:20 TK1861 ROME LAST CALL
08:20 TK1967 BIRMINGHAM LAST CALL
08:30 TK1043 BUCHAREST LAST CALL
08:35 TK1751 OSLO CANCELLED
08:35 TK413 MOSCOW-SVO BOARDING
08:35 TK1767 PRAGUE BOARDING
08:40 TK1793 STOCKHOLM GATE OPEN
08:40 TK1503 NUREMBERG CANCELLED
08:50 TK457 KIEV CANCELLED
08:50 ET1729 KIEV CANCELLED
08:50 VV4157 KIEV CANCELLED
08:50 TK1721 BERLIN-TEGEL CANCELLED
08:55 8Q191 ERCAN COUNTER OPEN
09:00 BA675 LONDON-LHR GATE OPEN
09:05 TK1073 TIRANA CANCELLED
09:05 TK1783 COPENHAGEN COUNTER OPEN
09:10 JK9161 BARCELONA COUNTER OPEN
09:10 TP8816 BARCELONA COUNTER OPEN
09:10 TK1853 BARCELONA COUNTER OPEN
09:25 TK635 TRIPOLI COUNTER OPEN
09:30 KK1012 ERCAN CANCELLED
09:45 TK1797 GOTHENBURG COUNTER OPEN
09:45 OA316 ATHENS COUNTER OPEN
09:50 KM785 MALTA COUNTER OPEN
09:55 AT9400 CASABLANCA COUNTER OPEN
09:55 TK1301 VALENCIA COUNTER OPEN
10:15 TK1807 LYON CANCELLED
10:15 TP6453 LISBON COUNTER OPEN
10:15 TK1759 LISBON COUNTER OPEN