TEX277

As many of you may well be aware, Turkish Airlines have borrowed a few 77-300ERs from Jet Airways and have been gracious enough to employ one of these aircraft on the LHR-IST route. Initially, it seemed that TK had blocked all Star Alliance F award but this all changed nearly two weeks ago. This, combined with the uncertainty of bmi’s Diamond Club (naming the increasing F redemption rates and the whole Lufthansa issue) and the fact that I had not had a overseas trip in close to six months, was the perfect excuse to burn my remaining bmi miles. The award was booked with the minimum of fuss the first morning after I had discovered the revised TK F award policy.

We left Brighton at around 07:45 for our 11:25 departure. We did not particularly wish to spend a large chunk of time in the quite frankly uninspiring SQ F lounge but were cautious of the M25 so close to rush hour on the day after Easter Monday. We were caught up in some slow moving traffic but nothing too significant allowing us to reach LHR by 09:30. I managed to find a nice parking bay for my car in the T3 short-term car park, grabbed our bags and headed into the terminal.

The walk was not as pleasant or as well signposted as it could have been but ultimately we found the TK check-in desks. We saw that they were in Zone C but had some trouble locating them initially as they were on the far side of the Emirates check-in desks and it took a while to differentiate the logos as the monitors displayed them both on red backgrounds.

A lady was standing at the entrance to the economy check-in. She stopped us heading for the First counter and asked the standard security questions. Afterwards she thanked us and pointed us towards the economy queue. I asked if that was where First checked in before she pointed us in the correct direction. The check-in agent was quiet and efficient. Soon enough our BPs were in our hands and she enquired if we knew where the lounge was located. I said that we did and she sent us on our way. I had read DELLAS’ trip report and was under the impression that we would receive an escort to the lounge. Either that has changed or we should have denied all knowledge of the lounge location.

I made no real difference to us really anyway. We purchased a little duty free before heading for the SQ lounge where we were warmly greeted and invited to enjoy the facilities in the F lounge. I had been in here before and was grateful that we only had an hour to spend awaiting our flight.


The host was over quickly to welcome us and to take our drink and food requests. My Champagne (Moet) arrived quickly followed a while later by my hot ham and cheese Panini whilst Mrs TEX277 launched a full on assault of the chicken congee and later the pastries.


Despite the SQ A380 being scheduled to depart at the same time as our flight, I was surprised that the lounge was so empty with just us and two others. Looks like the Suites were only ¼ full on this flight and I dare say the removal of UA to T1 has vastly reduced attendance in the SQ lounge.

There was no offer of an escort to the gate (as mentioned by DELLAS) but we could manage the two minute walk alone. We past the SQ A380 on the way to our gate.

TEX277

We arrived after all of the others had boarded and walked straight onto the aircraft. There were several members of the cabin crew at the door but despite this, when presented with our F BPs, we were merely pointed in the direction of our seats.


Mrs TEX277 soon enough realised that there were no overhead storage compartments in the F cabin but the area beneath the buddy seat provided sufficient space. One of the crew passed by and informed us that we had the cabin to ourselves and so could move around as we wished (our BPs were for 1D & 1H in the centre of the cabin) and store our baggage in the neighbouring window seats. She returned a couple of minutes later with a choice of pre-departure drinks: orange juice or water. I was a little surprised that Champagne was not on offer but needed a brief break from alcohol. Bose headsets and a Bulgari amenity kit were then given to each of us by it must be noted that we did not get the slippers that DELLAS received. A few minutes later and the same lady was back around offering a hot towel. Maybe I am getting picky but I did not like the way that she would serve my wife across my rather than walking around to her side of the aircraft. I didn’t mention anything because it was not a big deal but not what you would expect in First. She continued to do this throughout the flight. Almost as annoying was her tendency to peek over the door into the private later in the flight when we just wanted to chill out (no that’s not a euphemism).

Boarding was initially delayed by about 20 minutes but we were informed whilst onboard that they had to wait 45 minutes for clearance before we could taxi. That time seemed to fly past and we were on our way towards 09R and then onwards and upwards.

A cold towel was offered soon after take-off and then the menus arrived without our names written on the opening page. Mrs TEX277 had the menu for all of 5 seconds before she was asked which dishes she wished to eat. We decided to dine using the buddy seat so that we were facing each other and sharing a table.

TEX277

All too soon the captain announced that we would be starting our descent into IST in 15 minutes. We moved away from our allocated seats and into window seats to gain our first view of Istanbul and the Bosphorous.

TEX277

Once we had parked at our gate, we made our way to door 2L for disembarkation. The door opened and the very first thing that I saw was a very pretty 20 something lady in a red dress suit holding a sign displaying our names. I approached her and introduced myself. She led us along the jetway as I became aware of another passenger gaining on us. I moved over to one side and as he passed me he all of a sudden slowed to my pace and stated that as it was his first time at IST he’d probably be better off following us. I explained that it was our first time too and that we were just following the lady. He went on to say that he was connecting to another flight just as we were invited to climb about the buggy. I heard him say “Oh, I can I jump in?” just as the lady floored the throttle. After immediately grabbing my bag that was alone on the backseat as I feared it was going to fly off, I just about had time to shrug my shoulders in response to the chat before we vanished into the distance. I had the distinct pleasure of blasting a Jaguar XKR around Jaguar’s proving ground a few weeks ago (managed to hit 170mph!!!), but I was still surprised not only by the acceleration of this buggy but also by the speed with which the lady drove within the small confines of the terminal. We had a flashing light to warn potential road kill of our imminent presence but there was no audible warning. The girl drove like a pro though and I don’t think that we maimed anybody on the sprint down to the Visa desk.


She immediately sprung out of her seat and took our passports to the officials manning the desks. He returned a few seconds later and informed us that the fee was £10 each. We handed the money over, the Visa was taken care of and she floored the buggy again for the sprint down to immigration. The normal queues looked quite congested as we passed on our way to the fast track immigration desk. We were met here by a porter who took care of our hand-baggage. The immigration official took one quick look at our passports, stamped them and then returned them to us.

The porter and our escort were waiting on the other side and led us down to the baggage reclaim hall. Along the way we were asked about our return limo pick-up. She told us that our flight was at 08:00 and wondered when we wanted picking up. We agreed on 06:30 (apparently it is around a 30 minute drive between our hotel and the airport) which would allow us a quick look at the F lounge and a little time to do a spot of duty free shopping. After a wait of a few minutes, our bag arrived, we headed through customs and then outside the terminal. Within a minute our car, a beautiful Mercedes S-Class, pulled up and we dived inside.


I saw signs on the route to our hotel that would seem to suggest that the speed limit was 50kph. We were whizzing past the other cars on the road and I could read the speedo quite clearly. It read 120kph. It was that kind of ride! I was able to grab a quick picture of the car was we arrived at our hotel.


There seemed to be a difference of opinion as to whether the rate that we had booked provided B&B or Half-Board. Our email confirmation stated the latter whilst the front desk asserted that it was the former. I rang the agent (bmi/WWTE) to ask them to clarify and sort out the problem. This ended up taking several calls (mainly due to our call regularly getting ‘dropped’) which was quite annoying considering the roaming call charges. It would seem that the hotel was correct and that the agent had made a mistake in offering half-board. However, they agreed to foot the bill nonetheless. When not raking up a massive mobile phone bill we ventured out to get a feel for the city before returning to our hotel for our dinner.

The only full day that we had in Istanbul was spent touring the main sights:

TEX277

The only 777-300ER service on our return date departed at 08:00. We were picked up by our driver at 06:30 and arrived at the airport at 06:50. The same lady who had escorted us from the plane upon our arrival in IST was awaiting us along with a porter. They opened the doors, welcomed us, grabbed our luggage and lead us to the First Class Check-in area.

We had to walk past the economy and business queues to the unmanned First desk. There was a blue rope across the entrance to the First desk which was removed by our escort. We were lead to the desk, where an agent had sat when she saw our arrival and the escort took care of everything.


We were standing around whilst the escort and the agent checked us in, our porter waited with our hand-baggage while another TK employee was on hand overseeing the process. Naturally, this draw much attention to the economy and business queue.

We were then led over to the immigration queue. However, again there was a First Class channel that was cordoned off with another blue rope. The guy who had overseen the check-in process had removed this rope for us and an immigration official was settling into his seat as I presented our passports. Again, lots of glances from the other passengers and I almost felt guilty for not being a recognisable celebrity!

Our escort was awaiting on the other side of immigration with her buggy. We were quickly onboard and heading down to the lounge at a more cautious pace than she had driven on our arrival due to the amount of people walking in various directions in the departure lounge. She parked up and led us up the escalator with the porter taking care of the hand-baggage and then into the Prime Class Lounge where she introduced us to the staff and said farewell.


We were both so glad to see a table had been set for us. As we had got up so early we had not had time to eat breakfast.


After we had eaten, we retired to a comfy sofa and watched as numerous passengers attempted to gain admission to the lounge. Towards the end of our stay, an elderly couple actually managed to succeed! The lounge was relatively small and, as you can see from the photos, well furnished. However, I was glad that we had no more than one hour in there.











Due to the size of the lounge and the amount of staff on hand to look after us it lacked any real privacy or too much in the way of facilities besides food, drink and seating. There is only one toilet for each gender and each includes shower facilities. The gents had Dolce & Gabbana and Armani fragrances available.

When departure time arrived, another escort took us down the escalators and on a buggy ride to the gate. It was on this ride that we very nearly collected our first road-kill. A chap had his earphones in and could not have heard her “Pardon”s. It was her nerves that gave in and she jumped onto the brakes to perform an emergency stop! The tyres actually squeaked as they struggled to maintain grip with the ground. We looked at each other and pulled horror faces just before the escort had time to turn around to us and apologise.

TEX277

The gate area was empty except the security staff and the gate agents. We were on the plane with no fuss at all. Again we were the only passengers in First. The service on the flight was very similar to the outbound however, this time Champagne was offered as a pre-departure drink, slippers were offered and our flight attendant did not serve either of us across the other. She was much more attentive and made the flight very enjoyable. As I was freshening up just before landing, she had been around and initially asked for the slippers back. I think she realised by the look on my wife’s face that we were eager to have them as souvenirs and was happy to leave them with us.


We were greeted on the jetway at Heathrow by a Saudi Airlines employee holding a sheet of paper with our names on it. He asked if we’d like escorting through the airport, I told him that we’d be okay but he seemed to insist on doing it. We had arrived at the furthest gate and thought that a buggy ride would come in useful anyway. At the top of some escalators, I saw the buggy and thought what a welcome sight it was. That lasted for about 10 seconds up until the point that the buggy was not ours and that the escort had walked straight past it.

At immigration, he asked whether we wanted to take the EU channel or Fast Track. I stated that we were both IRIS registered and would use them if they were working. They were. We were both through in a matter of seconds and then had to wait for our escort has he had arrived at the staff entrance just behind a group of Virgin girls. I ended up taking him to the correct baggage reclaim belt. We were the first to arrive and waited behind the yellow line. The next people to arrive at the belt were a 30ish year old couple who decided that they wanted to stand right between us and the belt!

Conclusion

It liked the novelty of the private cabin onboard the aircraft but to be honest it seemed similar to a Qatar First seat but just with a sliding door that would give you privacy from other seated passengers (not that there were any on either of our flights) but not from nosey crew. The food was good but nothing exceptional and service onboard varied between satisfactory (outbound) and good (inbound) but both were not particularly proactive particularly with regards to topping up drinks.

I think that the real reason that should make anybody wish to travel on Turkish in First is the amazing ground experience at IST. We really did feel like VIPs rather than just First Class passengers.

Kevincm

Excellent work TEX277 ^

Seems to be a very well rounded product, with good service and very good ground service at IST.

narossa

Thank you, TEX277 for this nice report and great pictures.

A big WOW to TK´s service. I am really impressed.

modularmayhem

Great report... cant wait to try TK F

SQFAN

TEX277, thanks for the glimpse into TK F.

FlyingOnceMore

Thanks TEX, great read as usual ^

Mynameismud

+ 1 ^
Nice to see different routes different airlines...
Also pretty impressed by TK F

jplondon

Great report, thanks for taking time to write it. I certainly will try it now.

As always ground experience at LHR let's things down. Shame.

DELLAS

Hi great report. I was wondering what the service level would be when Jet Airways crew had finished training the TK crew. Maybe thats why my flight was 100% perfect, 9W crew were exceptional not taking anything away from the TK crew on my flight who were also very good. There are obviously some things that need more attention to detail. Still over all I am happy to see the service is still good and I personally love the food. Shame you didnt get slippers on the outbound but you got Bvlgari amenity kits which I would have loved. I would have swapped the slippers for that anyday

The ground service in IST as you say is amazing. Thats probably one of their major strengths. Ideal for people that need to get from A to B ASAP. Nice Mercs also.

With regards to the escorts at LHR. Maybe it was a one off as I was the 1st First Class passenger to ever fly out of LHR. Maybe that was why I got that. Will be interesting to see what others get in future.

Again great report and thanks for sharing your experience.

DELLAS

flyingDeeps

hmmm so there is no caviar on the LHR-IST route?

btw great report!