ASUDan130

Can you clarify again your observations on the salads and desserts? Do you think theres a lack of options with those now? Also you think the quality of the food is the same as J?

johndeere19

Wow, more RTW F travel...very jealous. Looking forward to the rest!

Nelumbo

Excellent TR, looking forward to more to come.

SFO777

Great report Francis. Interesting that CX operates different equipment on both SFO flights, mixing 744 and 777. Our CX879 last Sunday was the 777. I really enjoyed it, especially since we were the only two on the DK side. Do you prefer the 744 or 777?

Short hair Francis

Thank you for all the support and the feedback, I welcome it

With CX, in the past, J and F ran completely different food items for salad and dessert.
Nowadays, it is more or less the same, only larger portions being the difference for F and J.
How would I know this, F used to always do the chocolate lava cake and J tend to have the cheesecake in the past. In most days, i always swap in the J dessert provided there are extras. I asked the J dessert for this flight and they said it was the same, only bigger portions.

This is hard to explain to someone that haven't flown CX F in the past.

SFO777, this is a very hard argument personally.

Crew 2.5 on 744 for 9 passengers, 2 for 6 passengers on the 77W
The lavatory itself is way better on the 744
What can I say, I love peeing and watching the skies at 35000 feet

The cabin itself is the hardest to call,
I'm comparing 2K on the 77W on my LAX-HKG vs. 3K on 744 SFO-HKG for the record.
744 is a window/aisle 8 out 9, 77W is window/aisle 4/6

744 has a more private cabin since it doesnt lead to the cockpit but the aisles are narrower through row 3 and 4. Seats also lack a little extra space due the curvature of the plane.

77W has more room to the side of the seat, aisles are wider but more FAs past through from F to J.

It's almost impossible to make a call really.
Some people have different preferences.
I myself might lean slightly to the 77W because the flying map looks better
but the difference is so small.
I'll ask my family about this one since most of us have flown CX F one time or another so they might have a different outlook then I do

Personally, I would take whatever that 1) has award space 2) gets either best schedule or routing 3) try to get most amount of family members in F.
Nothing was sweeter than the time when my parents and I were all in F cabin/J service HKG-SIN back in Aug 2010

Seat 2A

I'm sure I speak for many when I say it's nice to see you back in the air again, Francis. Indeed, this trip report is off to a flying start!

Short hair Francis

Part 3 - Peek-A-Boo, is that a Turkish Boeing 777-300ER with First Class

As many of you have already noticed, Turkish leases 4 Boeing 777-300ER from Jet Airways of India which features fantastic F suites. The only problem, they don’t have enough 77W to cover the routes in case things go wrong. . The 4 main routes they ran 77W were JFK, HKG, IST, and BKK. So your playing Russian roulette when booking on them basically. However since I had booked this back in July 2010, I was stuck with dates and ended up booking HKG-IST-FRA-LHR.
Reasoning was this was the only F sector I found on the long-haul which works for me and I had to double connect from FRA and LHR. As Christmas of 2010 came, Western Europe was literally paralyzed by that 3 inch snowstorm that no one how to deal with, which concern my parents.

Jan 5, 2011 – Wednesday
TK 71 HKG-IST 11:15pm – 5:15am(+1) [Jan 6] (77W/F)

The morning of Jan 5, my fb frequent flyer friends noticed I’m flying to IST on TK. I have to thank someone on the TK board who put the link of flight24 which can check what equipment was flying on your route. As I was ex-HKG, at least I had the security of knowing what was coming in from IST. TK can’t switch out a regular 77W in mid-air Obviously I’ve double check the usual suspect where the F 77W were flying to last night, TC-JJA to JFK, TC-JJB returning to IST from HKG, TC-JJC to NRT and TC-JJD to HKG. I was safe but as concerned as I was, I wasn’t going to celebrate until I get my F boarding pass at HKG.



Day rolls along just fine and I was at HKG by about 8:45pm. There was the first thing I didn’t expected, a golf cart to gate 35 travellers lounge, great! The escort lady was even happier that I wasn’t a visitor so I breeze through HKG immigration. She’s very surprised to have me as a F passenger. Guess not everyday does agents see under 25 flying 3 class First, discounting a couple of FTers I know of course. From the golf cart driver, I found out LH, TG and TK give out golf carts for their F passenger. Now why can’t I get this service inbound on CX???

Gate 35 Traveller’s Lounge





The first lounge I tried that day was the gate 35 Travellers’ lounge which was the lounge TK uses. The J section was alright with some decent food selections, F section was just divided with no difference except for the 2 extra computer. I then try the showers which TK also paid for, bad idea, HK type of showers. I can barely get in the door with my luggage. The water temps and the pressure was fine though. Man I’m spoiled with the CX lounge showers, to put it into perspective for Oneworld people, the showers are even smaller than the ones in the JL NRT First lounge. Ouch! Even my home HKG shower isn’t that small although it’s not big by any means.
A short shower then back out into the lounge. Wanted to have a rum and coke? What? No rum, all there is beer? Ugh! Guess I’m not staying here too long. I dropped off 2 emails using the F side computers then off I went to UA international F lounge.

Hong Kong United International First Class Lounge








To compare AA and UA offerings is hard for me as I always had a choice of flying either or, AA/CX or UA works great for my travel pattern. I was offered the UA IFL which was empty when I came in. The agent there joked that I was younger than most F lounge visitors around, haha! He asked how much I flew to be flying like this. I said enough to compare to the UA 1Ks, he said 1Ks are alright but you get yelled at by GS people everyday. No offense to my fav GS, Iluv2fly, but it was just so funny, literally was dying of laughter when I heard that. He also noted that the UA, TG and the travelers lounge all used the same catering and that the UA F lounge is usually pretty empty because other * passengers don’t know they can use the UA lounge.
A short phone call home, mom wonders which lounge I’m in, haha. She even knows my hobby, why are you in the UA lounge? Aren’t there better lounges around then United, lol!!!! Because it’s private with few passengers and I was looking for a drink which I couldn’t get in the travelers one. Then I also talked to my dad.

To the FTers that know me personally and to other that don’t, during this phone call, I had the funniest experience. If you get to know me or read my other TRs, you would notice I have a knack for eating large amounts of food and to casually drink a little as well. My parents think that I’m acting like most other college guys and binge-drink off their brains.

I’ll leave you this question which I’ll reveal the answer at the end of the TR.
During the above phone call, one of my parents ask me to eat less when I fly, and one asked me to not drink. Lol, which is which?

As I was ending my phone call, another 2 guests that I noticed at the F check-in earlier has arrive, we all joked at the bar, we all need a drink and they also lounge-hop as I did. I guess it’s not just crazy young FTers like me that lounge-hop.

I bid them farewell relatively quickly as I wanted to get a good amount of pics on the TK 77W which was harder to get due to the wall configurations.


Turkish Airlines Boeing 777-300ER




Turkish Airlines 71
Hong Kong to Istanbul Ataturk
11:15pm – 5:25am(+1) [Jan 6], 11 hr 10 min flight
First Class, Seat 2K
Food – Dinner, Breakfast
Equipment – Boeing 777-300ER

I don’t know why TK starts boarding at 1hr? Too much gate lice maybe, but I flew straight through the F/J boarding line. It’s surprisingly to see TK blocks off the 1st jetbridge for F passengers only, they had a rope which block the access so one of the GAs have to go down with you to open it, nice!
Into the cabin, I went, my original seat had some door issues but I was promptly moved over 2A, no significant difference between those 2 seats.

Turkish Airlines Boeing 777-300ER First Class Cabin




Turkish Airlines Boeing 777-300ER First Class Seat




Look Across the Cabin


Part 3 Continues Below

Short hair Francis

Seat Console


Amenity Kit


With no one except the 2 FA’s and myself, I’ve got as many cabin pics as I can. With the TK/9W doors on the suite, it proved to be slightly harder get the cabin photos especially. This required the need of the ottoman in aisle 1 and the seat in aisle 2. However, this can be done with a rather empty cabin provided you have enough time. The seat however did not give a lot of carry-on storage space which was also not a problem. The crew swiftly brought out a glass of champagne for me during pre-flight but due to communication issue, they didn’t know I wanted to borrow the bottle as well.

The seat as expected was simply excellent, also try the full lie-flat while on the ground and my feets couldn’t even touch the ottoman. I said it was a worthy gamble for such a seat like this. The seat also came with air nozzles which was great since I tend to like colder cabins than most people. The side of the seat did have some wasted space between the window and the console which was a bit of shame. TK also turn on the entertainment system while on the ground which was simply fantastic for me as it took time for me to compile a playlist on the plane.

Pre-Departure Beverage, Roederer Brut Champagne


The doors was close on time and off we took off from the smoggy HKG. The flight time was 11 hr 45 mins, the route did surprised me as we cut across Southwest China near Kunming, north of Dhaka before heading Northwest hugging the India/Nepal/China border before flying out to Iran and the Stan countries. Always thought we could fly a little more north on this route but again, Chinese airspace can be a pricy premium.

The FA’s got to work pretty quick on this flight, as many others have said before me, the English skills especially for one of the FA was somewhat of an issue on this flight and were a bit unrefined in terms of training.

Unfortunately for me, it seemed today I did overeat prior to the flight, which rarely ever happens to me. Guess that’s what happens when you have 6:30pm family dinner, 10pm lounge grub, then another full dinner by 11:45pm.


During the service, you can tell TK staff weren’t as polished as others like CX or LX. More hesitant in terms of giving and taking away plates, spacing of serving times between different courses, and handle of English as well. They did have excellent ideas such as preparing a hot and cold towels for guest. The catering was very good, certainly better than CX. The entertainment system which I didn’t have any expectation was also good, close to comparable to CX and better than LH/LX.

The Menu


TK 71 Dinner

After Take-off
Assorted Canapees

Caviar
Ossetra Caviar with Classic garnish and melba toast

Hors D’oeuvres

Smoked salmon tartar with sour cream with chives

Caesar’s Salad with roast beef

Grilled goat cheese with seasonal vegetables with balsamic dressing

Soup
Creamy carrot soup with crispy celery and carrot

Main Course

Fillet of beef with sautéed spinach, leek, carrots and potato gratin

Grilled Chicken Breast with roasted red peppe and potato and celeriac puree

Prawn “Vulcano” with seasonal fresh vegetable and steamed rice

Grilled Artichoke Ravioli with green asparagus served on Cream Sauce on parmesan cheese

Cheese and Fruit Cart
Assorted Cheese

Fresh Seasonal Fruit

Dessert
Crepes with apricot marmalade and chocolate sauce

Panna Cotta

Mango Ice Cream

Turkish Dessert

Freshly brewed Espresso, Turkish or Regular Coffee and selection of teas


Canapes


Dining Presentation


Appetizer



The Caviar as others noted as a full little jar, which a full plate of sides, I have to said this close to overwhelm me, certainly didn’t expect to eat a full jar of caviar. The salad was a little off from what I expected, it was closer to a cold cut plate than what I consider salad. The beef was still airplane beef, if it’s something AA does well, it’s the steak on the flights.

Salad Plate


Soup


Main Course


Dessert and Fruit Cart


The dessert and fruit cart was full of goodies but they couldn’t do me iced coffee. Oh well, soon the FA got the bed set up for me, I wouldn’t call it a full bedding set like CX but certainly close, it came with 1 big, 1 small pillow, a pad and a reasonable duvet. Tried to sleep but couldn’t, so out comes the computer to re-arrange the photos taken. I’ll now note back to the AVOD.

I love the stars, don’t you?


Duvets



Business Class Mini-Bar


On a regular long-haul flight, I rarely ever watch movies unless it’s something specific I really watched to watch prior, what I usually do is set up a playlist of current Top 40 type music like most college age guys and then put it onto the airshow and do any other work that I may have. I may have the HKG bug inside me which is you tend to rush everything you do, in this case, I said I’m cursed for freezing the entertainment system. This was by far the worst flight for me, I had 4 auto-resets plus 2 additional complete frozen system which required manual reset 5-6 hrs into the flight. Talk about a headache having to set that playlist every time, it simply drove me nuts, maybe airlines should hire me to test their AVOD, I’ve frozen so many entertainment system in my life, it’s not even funny anymore.

Finally about 6.5 hrs in, I finally got some snooze in all this comfortable bed, got in about 2 ¾ hrs of sleep which was great. Then more work was done during the flight afterall then the FAs served my breakfast about 1 ¼ hours outside IST.

TK 71 Breakfast

Fresh Juices
Freshly Squeezed Orange or Grapefruit Juice
Strawberry Smoothie

Bread Basket
Ovenfresh bread selection, croissant, and Danish Pastry

Sides
Fresh Seasonal Fruits
Plain Yoghurt
Home made Muesli/cornflakes
Selection of cheese and cold cuts

Main Course
Omelette with Goat Cheese served with herbed tomato, sautéed mushroom and potatoes

Chicken Ham and Cheese Toast with, asparagus, broccoli and fried potatoes

Blueberry Pancake accompanied with marinated berries


Freshly brewed Espresso, Turkish or Regular Coffee and selection of teas





Taste was average, I like CX Breakfast over this but whatever, it’s not the end of the world. Plus I’m not the biggest fan of breakfast anyway. It was done relatively quick as I again didn’t have a big appetite this flight, then soon was the packing up. IST and its Prime Class Lounge awaits. Flight ended up at 12 hrs, someone explain why we flew like this???



Next Part
Part 4 - The hell of IST and TK/LH intra-Euro Business Class IST-FRA-LHR

Short hair Francis

Thank you, I seem to have prepared this TR a little better than my last one.
I'm still in the air every month
It's actually a rarity I'm on 3 class F, my pattern usually is 3 class J, 2 class F.
I still fly mid-cons on most months regardless.
2011 looks like to be boring year for me unfortunately so you might not see many TR from me this coming year especially in the 3 class F variety.

jlisi984

When I flew IST-NRT in F we also flew rather haphazardly across land... Probably due to airspace restrictions?
I'm wondering about your next part (the hell of IST) as I actually liked IST quite a lot... (Better than FRA!!!! )

I share with you the experience of being a young F pax. Just finished a RTW in F and I was wondering if I should call the trip report "Aren't you way to young for a RTW in F already?" but decided against it!

Anyways, I was just in the UA lounge (unfortunately C section only) in HKG and I can also attest that space-wise it is the best of the 3 *A lounges (UA, TG, SQ).

Anyways, great trip report so far! You were lucky that they didn't swap out the a/c for you on TK!

joorinainen

Im interest about this also. When i flew the HKG-IST it was like that also.. There were some turbulence along the way but would it explain this completely?

Short hair Francis

Thank you Jlisi984, your more than welcome to use that as your TR title.
I say you're a even more impressive young elite than I am.
I didn't fly that much in my mid teens and your a AC Superelite which is harder to get than AA EXP.
I need to show up to one of those YYZ Mini-DOs once and meet you if I ever have a chance.

As I said, even the famous TK can't swap a plane en-route from IST


I thought from the routing, TK either didn't want to pay China, Kazahzstan, or Russia, weird routing for sure but I can't complain too much sitting in F

Short hair Francis

Part 4 - The hell that is IST and TK/LH intra-Euro Business Class IST-FRA-LHR

Jan 6, 2010 – Thursday
TK 1587 IST-FRA 8:25am – 10:35am (738/J)
LH 906 FRA-LHR 12:20pm – 1:05pm (320/J)

Doors Open and there are 2 agents waiting on the jetbridge for the 3 F class passengers. Straight onto the transfer checkpoint. The 2 agents guided us pass all the kettles, yay! Then back into the departing concourse and another golf cart to the lounge. What do you mean we’re going to the TK Lounge? Sorry sir, only outbound flights in F get F lounge, inbound F only gets J lounge, great! I was looking forward to the fantastic ladies of the Prime Class Lounge.

Istanbul Turkish Airlines Business Class Lounge






Go into the computer section, everything was in Turkish, not-workable for me. How about a shower then? The shower was a walk-in common access shower. If you don’t understand me, do you remember how your high school showers were? Exactly like that! Ugh! Are you kidding me, I’m dealing with this as an F passenger? Internet access was equally just as sketchy. Log-into the sign in page, submit your GMS(cell) number and wait for a text/SMS with a password. What the crap is this? I flew Turkish for this junk?

Finally got into another wifi network, it keeps jumping in and out every 15 mins but better than nothing. Damn it, I need to use the washroom, and there it is, Squat toilets! I thought those mainly show up in Mainland China, jeez! About 50 mins before the flight, being the cautious person I am, began heading towards the gate for FRA. Gate Lice Ultimate, it was a truly free for all. Doesn’t matter if your Caucasian, Arabic, Black, Asian looks, everyone just jump right into the gate. Now why does one of my friend always seem to MR to IST???

Turkish Airlines Boeing 737-800




Turkish Airlines 1587
Istanbul Ataturk to Frankfurt
8:25am – 10:35am, 3 hr 10 min flight
Business Class, Seat 1D
Food – Breakfast
Equipment – Boeing 737-800

The Worst Bulkhead Legroom I’ve ever seen



Whomever recommended row 1 as being good on TK 738 on seatexpert? I want to kill you literally! The legroom is even worse than my AA (SlAAeship/752) bulkhead. Boarding seem to took forever and the plane took off approx. 9:00am due to waits at the runway.
Similar to my TK F flight, TK offerings has potential, plenty of it in fact, except the FAs really do need to grasp English skills better and avoid using one word for the entire action. The audio system was also a head scratcher, they run 12 channels except the listing from the magazine and the system don’t remotely match.

The most surprising thing I experienced on this flight was the amount of Canadians that were in J, there were at least 4 out of the 7 passenger in the cabin. Red Deer, Calgary, Edmonton, most of the people was working in Yemen, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia. Big money of course, but how many guards do you need 24/7, my seatmate even admits Sana has gone worse since he’s been there for ½ year.

TK 1587 Breakfast

Sides
Fresh Fruits
Yoghurt with Raspberry

Beef Ham and herbed Chicken Cold Cuts
Assorted Cheese

Breads
Ovenfresh Croissant and Bread Selection
With butter and Jams

Main Course
Scrambled Eggs on Turkey Ham and Cheese Toast served with herbed sautéed mushrooms and grilled tomato and green pepper

Scrambled Egg Wrap with mozzarella pane, chicken sausage, grilled green pepper and cherry tomato

Freshly Brewed Coffee and Tea




Selecting the breakfast main course proved to be rather tricky, it was either egg or egg? The FA got annoyed as I couldn’t decide which to take. I’m usually decisive but it’s kinda hard when it’s egg or egg.
The rest of the meal was really tasty being but I would still trade the this food away for the usual US-style domestic First Class Seat. As to whomever said AA has dirty planes, wait until you get a chance to use a TK lavatory.

It took about 25 mins of circling around FRA before finally landing. Hmm, wow, can’t believe we got such a big welcoming from the Deutschland Polizei. 2 Police officers each at the front and back door, they must have suspected someone on the plane since I don’t remember seeing such a big reception for the plane before. 1 hr 10 min connection in FRA means run run run. This intra-Euro J ticket finally had some use, premium security lines, cleared security in 3 mins, made it to the LHR gate for a bp and still had 10 mins for the J lounge, sorry folks, no time to go find the Senator lounge today

Frankfurt Lufthansa B24 Business Class Lounge








Lufthansa 906
Frankfurt to London Heathrow
12:25pm – 1:05pm, 1 hr 40 min flight
Business Class, Seat 3C
Food – Light Snack
Equipment – Airbus 320-200

Lufthansa Airbus 320-200


More Intra-Euro J crap



LH 906 Light Snack


The LH plane is very similar to TK intra-Euro J, one difference, no audio but the bulkhead actually had a little extra space. Lucky for me, no neighbor for 3A and I had the entire row to myself. Some more take-off snoozes, was expecting a hot lunch but only got a light cold snack, whatever, I’m only ½ hungry anyway. Landing into LHR was on time. Getting from the plane to immigration seem like an eternity. Why are you coming to UK? What do you do? Do you have friends here? Where are you coming from and when you’re leaving. Not too many hard question and I was into United Kingdom.

Next Part
Part 5 – What a “suite/sweet” of events at the Andaz Liverpool Street

SFO777

Wow, arriving F pax can't use the TK First Class lounge at IST? Not that it's any great lounge but I believe that it at least has a private shower vs. the locker room showers of the J lounge.

Intra-Europe J class is an absolute joke. I'd even take US Airways First over any of the European intra-Europe seats.

view

Not sure why you'd want to ruin a first class experinece by doing IST-FRA-LHR at the end of it. FRA is a horrible transit airport, plus you get two legs on European business class, which you seem to have lots of issues with. So it's odd that you didn't just fly IST-LHR, TK even use widebodies on some flights so you can relax in a proper seat.

Thanks for sharing the report ^