UA1K_no_more

Fair enough. I agree that they'll get the benefit of the doubt for the inaugural flights. They may have had some ceremony at SFO as well that delayed the departure from there.

However, today's IST-SFO flight left 75 minutes late and is estimated to land 50 minutes late. Not a good start to this service.

I have a 2-hour connection in Chicago after arriving on the IST-ORD flight, and I'm starting to think that it's going to be tight because that flight is very often delayed more than 45 minutes.
If TK can't operate their flights on time (and it is probably caused by congestion at IST), they should rethink their schedules.

That may just be the regular holding pattern for SFO Nice views, nevertheless.

BEAV

We'll be flying SFO-IST in J in November. What lounge is TK using at SFO?

UA1K_no_more

Turkish Airlines operates from the "G" gates, so you would have access to the regular United lounges in "G" and T3. The Singapore Airlines lounge closes at 12:30 or 13:30 (depending on season) and doesn't reopen until 20:30 or 21:30, so that won't work for the TK departure (18:10).

BEAV

Thank you. Too bad about SQ lounge being closed!

Ebg33

The Eva air lounge is also an option (which i prefer over the united club)
It's located right next to the Singapore lounge
Just take a right hand turn after Security
I think IT closes somewhere between 15 and 17:30

UA1K_no_more

Yeah, I forgot about the EVA Air lounge.
The afternoon EVA Air flight leaves at 16:30 in November, so the lounge will most likely close at that time (or slightly earlier).

mmjaysee

Has anybody seen upgrade offers on SFO-IST or IST-SFO? From what I can tell, there is no Premium Economy on this route, so do they offer a paid upgrade from Coach to Business? If so, how much?

Also, can you access the T3 Amex centurion lounge from Terminal I-G where TK departs from?

UA1K_no_more

Yes, you can.
There's an airside connection between T3 and the "G" side of the international terminal. Go through security at the G terminal and turn right. The Centurion Lounge is very close to the T3 side of the connector, so it will only take a few minutes to walk from the G terminal to the lounge.

mmjaysee

Thanks!! I'm stepping outside my AA/OneWorld comfort zone here. It's the first time we've bought a ticket on a non-AA/OW carrier in ages, but the $600 roundtrip nonstop was too good to pass up!

Anyone have any idea if they'll offer paid upgrades?

Far Siren

Highly unlikely. They offer upgrades to Comfort Class on occasion but I've never seen it for J.

mmjaysee

They offered it actually but we weren't eligible. It depends on your fare class, but you either have to pay $850 or $1650. Or if you're like us and got the crazy $699 round trip fare then you are not eligible at all for an upgrade.

The service on the flight was great, and the entertainment options were really good, but those seats are really uncomfortable. Not sure if it was the effect of the slimline seats or maybe just not much leg room, but I found it to be much worse than the other int'l coach seats I've tried... BA, JL, CX, even AA or UA coach. But I have no complaints for $699

netllama

I flew Turkish roundtrip SFO -> IST (then onward to Berlin/Tegel), and back again, for a total of 4 flights all on Turkish. Departed on April 26, returned May 10. I'm disappointed to report that this was one of the worst flying experiences I've ever had. Every stage of the process, from booking to flying was amateurish at best, and incompetent in some cases. While I don't fly anywhere near as often as some of you, I do average about 3-4 international round trips per year (all out of pocket), so I'm not some novice with little or no experience with other big airlines. I've flown Singapore, Emirates, SAS, British, KLM, Korean, ANA, JAL, and United internationally in the past.

Some details; as a few others have already noted, Turkish tends to be delayed on many of their routes. While it can be forgiven for the inaugural flight on a new route, when its a common occurrence on the majority of older, pre-existing routes, that's not good. All 4 of my flights departed at least 40 minutes late (with the worst departing over an hour late). But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

I booked the flight shortly after Turkish announced the new SFO/IST route, and opened it for sale, last year. I found it odd that it wasn't possible to select my seats on the flights at the time (for free, or even with a fee), but assumed that maybe they'd open it up some number of days in advance of departure. However, after googling, I determined that, nope, this is normal. You can't select your seat on a flight until you check-in (in person or online), 24 hours before departure. Its one thing to get stuck with some miserable seat on a short hop, but when I'm going to be sitting on a plane for 12+ hours, I want to make sure that I'm not in seat hell the entire time. I tweeted Turkish's account inquiring how I could perform seat selection in advance of check-in. Their response? Call their Istanbul call center. Seriously, they want me to make an international phone call to select a seat on a flight? I ended up digging around on their website, and found a number of semi-unofficial US based customer service email addresses. I blasted an email out to all of them inquiring how I could select seats on the flights, stipulating that I wanted an aisle seat as close to the front of economy as possible. Most of them never replies at all. A few replied with the company line ("call Istanbul" or "you can choose a seat at check-in"). However, one person in their LA office (an "Anna Kottwitz") actually came through and gave me a seat assignment in row 13 (which turned out to be the 3rd row of economy). Praise to Ms. Kottwitz for excellent customer service, but shame on Turkish for such a poorly run process, especially for a new customer, on a brand new route. Despite the seat assignment via email, I still couldn't verify my seat assignment via the Turkish website. It claimed that I had no assigned seat.

The day before my flight, I attempted to check-in for my flight, but SURPRISE!, it actually wouldn't let me. Apparently something (the TSA? a bug in their website?, who knows) returned an error that check-in for the SFO-IST part of my itinerary was not available, and I'd need to do so in person at the airport the next day. Thus, had I not reached out to Turkish via email a few months earlier, I literally would have not received any seat assignments until I showed up at SFO on the day of my flight, and who knows what kind of horrible dregs would be leftover at that point.

I arrived at SFO about 2.5 hours before departure time, and thankfully, check-in for my flight went relatively smoothly. Off to gate G101 I went, to wait for boarding. My boarding pass claimed that they would commence boarding 45 minutes before departure time, but I suspected that was just wishful thinking, as very few airlines truly start boarding at the time printed on the boarding pass. As I suspected, boarding began late. In fact, they didn't even announce boarding for anyone (those requiring special assistance, parents with small children, Star Alliance status members, etc) until 20 minutes before departure. And when they did announce, it was a chaotic cattle call, with literally everyone rushing the counter at once. I managed to get near the front of the line, and got to my seat before a significant percentage of the rest of economy.

The plane (777-300ER) itself was in ok condition, but had definitely seen better days. Seating was 9 across, in a 3-3-3 arrangement. IFE was a large screen with some custom Turkish OS, that I found to be frustrating & unintuitive at times. They seemed to be attempting to emulate the behavior of Android, poorly. Movie selection was decent, with a wide variety of American films, and a much smaller selection of foreign films. Everyone (in economy) received a small amenities bag with slippers, lip balm, & tooth brush. The security video was a bit on the obnoxious side, as they literally ran it twice, once in Turkish with Turkish subtitles, and again in English. We pushed back from the gate over 30 minutes late, and were wheels up about 50 minutes behind schedule.

Once in the air, the flight crew handed out hot towels to everyone, then bite size Turkish delight (which tasted a bit on the stale side, likely because it had been sitting on the plane since it had left IST more than 15 hours earlier). Initial drink service came through nearly an hour into the flight (it was well past 8PM PT at this point), along with passing out dinner service menus (similar to what Singapore does). Dinner service didn't even start until nearly 3 hours into the flight (nearly 10PM PT). The food itself was ok, but not spectacular. It was pushing towards midnight (PT), over 4 hours into the 12+ hour flight, before they came through to collect everyone's dinner trays. After which, they turned off the cabin lights, and it was officially time to attempt to sleep. As I noted above, I've flown on a decent number of other airlines internationally, and I expect on a long flight, the crew will come through the cabin, even in the middle of 'night', offering beverages, if not just water. Even some of the more mediocre airlines (I'm looking at you, United), will offer water in small cups, so that people don't get severely dehydrated on a long haul flight. At no time did the crew on my flight come through the cabin offering any drinks to anyone at all. Never. At one point, I wandered to the back of the plane to seek out some water, and found the crew mostly goofing off, and I stood there for over 10 seconds before they even acknowledged my presence. The remainder of the flight was uneventful, with breakfast service about 90 minutes before landing in Istanbul. Overall, my interactions with the crew throughout the flight were cold, impersonal, and often bordering on rudeness.

What followed upon landing was a bit of a shocker. I assumed that an airline with the global presence of Turkish, operating as many flights daily, as they like to brag they provide would have quite the impressive hub. After all, their regional competitors, such as Emirates have a sizeable, and fairly significant operation. However, that was not to be in IST. Our flight landed, and then proceeded to taxi for nearly 30 minutes. Nearly everyone on the plane seemed to wonder what was going on. We weren't sitting stationary, but actively driving around the airport. Eventually we reached what seemed like some distant suburb of the airport, stopped moving, and the pilot turned off the seat belt sign. We were no where near the terminal, in fact I couldn't even see a terminal from where the flight had parked. At that point, it dawned on most people that there was no gate/jetway available, and they were going to bus the entire flight to the terminal. Everyone lumbered down the steps onto the tarmac, and got on one of the 3 large airport buses sitting beside the plane. At this point, we could see that our flight wasn't some oddity. There were literally dozens of other flights parked out in this airport hinterland, similarly bussing their passengers back to the terminal. In fact, it looks like the vast majority of Turkish flights never received a real gate assignment, and instead were bussing their passengers to/from the plane & terminal. The bus ride was quite the experience. For those familiar with the old Disney park ride, "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride", that's basically what it felt like. The bus randomly accelerated then slammed on the breaks. We'd weave back & forth on the bi-directional airport road, often with oncoming traffic coming at us until the last second when the bus would weave back onto his right side lane. At another time, we were stuck behind an airport catering truck crawling along at barely more than a jogging pace for no apparent reason. It took nearly 20 minutes of driving to reach the terminal, where they pulled up, and every walked inside.

I didn't realize it at the time, but the part of the terminal where the bus left us was at the very far end, in a section of gates which were all ground level (no jetways, etc). To call this section of the terminal crowded, would have been generous. It was absolutely teaming with people, waiting for flights, and there were few empty seats, leaving most people standing around. Either the AC wasn't working, or, someone decided that setting it to near 80F was a great temperature for a crowded area. We found the gate for our connecting flight, and waited. At this point, we had lowered our expectations significantly, and as a result, were not at all surprised when the flight started 'boarding' (AKA, getting on the bus) just 15 minutes before the scheduled departure time. Another cattle call, with everyone rushing the counter, and boarding a bus. Once again, we went on a wild ride across the tarmac, although thankfully it was to a much less distant A320. However, when the bus pulled up, apparently the crew (or the plane itself) wasn't quite ready for passengers, so we were held prisoner on the bus for another 15 minutes, with no explanation whatsoever. Finally the bus doors opened, and everyone climbed the steps to the plane. Another round of sitting on the plane waiting for departure, and we were in the air nearly 40 minutes behind schedule. Somewhat amusingly, the food on this ~3 hour flight to Berlin/Tegel was arguably better than on the flight from SFO. Or at least tasted like it was sitting in a fridge/reheater for much less time. Food service was still quite slow (nearly half way into the flight before we received dinner, and they collected the trays just before landing).

I should note that I had a fantastic time for the 2 weeks that I was in Germany. Although I was dreading the flights home.

The flight from Berlin/Tegel back to IST departed about 30 minutes late, and was mostly a carbon copy of the flight out. Upon arriving at IST, the airport gods must have looked down upon us with pity, as we somehow managed to be assigned a real gate with a jetway. No bus! I thought, ok perhaps the flight out was a series of flukes, and I'd now get to experience the awesomeness that IST is rumoured to be. But no. The plane pulled up to the gate, and we sat there with the engines humming for nearly 20 minutes. Apparently the person responsible for driving the jetway up to the plane was missing, drunk, lost, confused, or who knows what. Eventually someone drove the jetway to the plane, and everyone was able to deplane. Literally as I was walking up the jetway, I noticed some guy standing there, half blocking the path of people, screaming in Turkish into his phone. I shrugged it off as just more IST wackiness, but the second that I walked past him, he turned towards me and screamed "Show me your boarding pass!!". Note, this man was not wearing anything that resembled an official uniform. There was no sign indicating that he was supposed to be inspecting boarding passes. Not even a name badge that suggested that he was someone official. I yanked my pass out of my pocket, showed it to him, and then he motioned that I could continue.

I finally entered the terminal, and it actually looked like a normal airport terminal. Real gates, with jetways, vending machines, informational signs. Apparently I was in the part of the airport that wasn't a holdover from 1963. However, IST has that nasty habit that a few other airports around the world have, where they won't show you your actual boarding gate number until some limited time before departure (LHR also exhibits this frustrating practice). So even though I had arrived about 2 hours before my connecting flight, I had no way of knowing where to go next. I sat down, and waited for the signs to update. Finally it showed me where I needed to go. Of course it was a gate number that both seemed, and turned out to be, a very long walk from where I was currently. I literally ended up walking the entire length of the terminal, and where did I end up? Yup, back at the same group of gates where my flight to Berlin had departed 2 weeks earlier. The hot, over-crowded, bus-only area. Only now it was even more chaotic, as they had roped off the area around the gate where my flight was to depart, and everyone was being funnelled through some 'extra' security. The first person was doing a normal passport/boarding pass check. Once past that person, (who put some cryptic sticker on the back of my passport), I was sent to another line, where someone standing behind a desk was typing away furiously. I stood there, without being told anything for a good 5 minutes. Then they handed my passport back to me, and I was directed to a 3rd line, which turned out to be the 'board the bus' line. Of course they didn't have enough buses ready for everyone on my flight, so the line was backing up fast. There was no where to sit, no bathroom facilities, not even a vending machine to purchase a drink. Everyone was effectively put in a fenced off pen, waiting for a bus. After standing around for about 20 minutes, another bus arrived, and everyone made a mad dash, pushing & shoving, so as to avoid being stuck back in the terminal waiting for the next bus. I got on, and the bus took off on yet another crazy ride to the plane. This time we almost crashed into some truck which cut across our path. The bus driver slammed on the breaks hard, sending a number of people flying into other people.

We finally got to the plane, boarded and sat down. At that point, we waited nearly 2 hours before the plane 'pushed back'. Granted we boarded about 45 minutes before departure time, but still, it was ridiculous. The plane started its long lumbering drive to the runway, but then stopped and just sat. After not moving for almost 15 minutes, the pilot announced that due to heavy air traffic, we were being held back from take off for another 15-20 minutes. At this point we were over an hour late for departure. About 5 minutes later we started moving again, and actually took off a good 75 minutes behind schedule.

The flight itself was easily the worst of the 4 that I took on Turkish. Two rows ahead of me was a family with a lap toddler. It was the parents plus, what I assume was the grandmother, all sitting together. The toddler was crying hysterically from the moment we were wheels up, and the parents seemed completely at a loss on how to console the child. However within a few minutes, I noticed some bizarre music playing over the PA system. Oh wait, that's not coming from the PA system. The parents brought a boombox onto the flight, and were blasting Turkish children's music. Think Barney, Sesame Street or whatever other stuff is popular with the pre-school crowd, all in Turkish, and that's what we were being subjected to. Initially I assumed they were doing this just to calm their child down, and then all would be fine. Granted, the music did work to calm their child down, however the instant they turned it off, the kid started howling again. Back came the music. An hour into the flight, it was still playing at full volume. At this point, I thought surely they're going to have to turn it off after meal service, as people are going to want to sleep. But NOPE. Meal service started nearly 3 hours into the 12+ hour flight, and once the trays were collected and the cabin lights turned off, the music was still playing at full blast. At this point, I noticed other passengers were flagging down the crew to complain, and the crew did *NOTHING*. I paged the crew to complain. They gave me some nonsensical excuse that the music was better than listening to the child crying. Says who? The remainder of the flight was this hell of listening to the kid scream alternating with listening to the horrific music.

I'm honestly not sure what the solution is to this problem, but doing nothing doesn't seem like the right choice. Catering to the needs of a passenger who is technically not even paying for a seat seems ludicrous.

All that I know is that the entire Turkish flying experience was horrible, and I'll never give them my business again.

bocos

"The remainder of the flight was this hell of listening to the kid scream alternating with listening to the horrific music."

Thanks for posting the trip report. I'm sorry to hear about your experience , but if it means anything it was entertaining (and informative) to read. Your descriptions are the reason why my wife won't fly internationally in anything lower than J. I know it's unrealistic, but that's why we collect all them miles.

vivamuci

I feel your pain. For me TK is still okayish since I fly in the C cabin and enjoy some status benefits.

But I expect things to get worse.

The new chairman of the board was on the inaugural and so was a big group of the management team.

All of them had at least 3 very big "VIP" luggage tags attached to their cabin luggage.

When I addressed the problems with the (non-existent) customer service and poor website
a guy asked me if I wouldn't enjoy the great food on TK.

Table manners were equally non-existent as basic knowledge of the English language.

What I learned is that I am not purchasing tickets
for flights on Türk Hava Yollari but Erdogan & Amigos Hava Yollari.

As my primary route is New York <> Istanbul I will stick with TK.
Many of my business partners who have a choice and pay real money
(unlike the cheap J fares I am on) refuse to fly TK for frequent delays
and poor customer service.

The number of unhappy frequent flying pax leaving TK, is compensated for by their super fast growth.
Since TK will be rapidly expanding for many more years, I don't expect things to get better.
Regrettably.

Forrest Bump

netllama painted nearly carbon copy my experience on a recent NRT trip.
Situation now at IST is so confused, in the terminal and onto the tarmac, that each arrival and departure provoke concern to me.
From website to safety culture it is a madly long way for TK to become the 1st class airline they claim to be.