I recently completed a trip with the new Boeing 777 service from Istanbul to Toronto and back and had quite a good experience so I thought some of you might be interested in this. Flight from Istanbul was upgraded to the new Comfort Class return was in Economy. The following were my observations:

Check-in at Istanbul was quick with almost no wait. The flight boarded and departed Istanbul on time. Load in Comfort was maybe 30% but Economy seemed fully booked. The plane was obviously brand new with really spacious fabric Comfort Class seat which really seemed more like a business seat if it was not for the fact that you had to adjust them manually and could not recline to full flat. Overall, a quite comfortable seat with an adequate recline and more than sufficient seat pitch. The Service was friendly and personal (they even provided a fresh pepper grinder from Business when I asked them for this). The catering from Do&Co was probably the best I have ever had on an aircraft comparable to business class offering on SA with pre-departure drinks and drink&canepe service offered before the main menu was offered. All service was on china and crystal and the flight attendants did a truly excellent job on this flight. They provided a variety of alcoholic drinks and constantly asked to refill my glass, I had an excellent red wine (from South Africa I think). Actually, the food and service was so good it seemed more like I was in a restaurant than on a plane. Also, the entire cabin including the bathrooms were excellently maintained and cleaned throughout the entire flight. The only non-positive observation I have made on this leg was that the AVOD screen in Comfort is smaller than the screen provided in Economy. Also, their AVOD functioned slower in Comfort than it did on the return leg in economy and at one point froze over completely. The flight attendant attempted to reboot the system but in the end I had to switch to another seat. Overall, I thought it was an excellent product though and the flight also arrived in Toronto on time.

On the return leg from Toronto to Istanbul the check-in was quite chaotic with only 4 standard and 1 premium counters open to process an almost full load. The result was and extremely long and disorganized line with the people at the end of the line only barely able to make the flight. Also, it was interesting to note that the ground services supervisor in Toronto was quite actively complaining to the TK ground services manager about the disorganized check-in process However, since Pearson airport is almost deserted at the time TK departed 23:50 all of this was just a nuisance and hopefully something that TK will improve in the future. The plane was again a 777 and brand new and clean with departure delay of around 15 min. A nice touch were the travel kits offered to all passengers which included lip balm, socks, eyeshades and toothpaste/bruch. Economy seating seemed quite comfortable to me but the seat pitch is just on the borderline especially for taller travelers and when the seat in front reclines. These seats had one of the largest AVOD screens I have seen in economy and the screen tilts up when the seat in front reclines so it was always comfortable to watch. However, the selection on their AVOD although large seemed a little dated. For economy, I thought the in flight service was executed efficiently, friendly and the quality of the food was what you would expect. Again, free variety of alcoholic and normal beverages offered but this time in plastic glasses My only non-positive observation on this flight was that after the dinner service stopped and the flight attendants asked to lower the blinds so that the cabin would remain dark the overhead lights did not go off above the side windows. I was too tired to complain at the time but found this very annoying as they were quite bright. When I asked the flight attendant about this the next morning she told me that it was their normal sleep mode setting. When I mentioned that LH keeps its economy cabin almost fully dimmed she asked why I did not mention this earlier as I was apparently the first passenger ever to complain about this. I asked her if it would be possible to change this setting on future trans-Atlantic return legs and she discussed this with the purser and then told me that they would recommend this change to be made. I would be interested to learn from other forum members if this has indeed been implemented now

Overall, I was very impressed with TK especially with their new Comfort but also with their Economy service.