FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - To Nepal & Back - the view from Seat 2K (LH, TG, TK F & C)
Old Mar 25, 2014, 11:07 am
  #6  
noah
 
Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: PDX
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Leg 4: IST to PDX – The Longest Flight & United’s Welcome Home

Turkish Airlines 33 IST-IAH, 777-300, Business Class, Seat 2K
United Airlines 381 IAH-PDX, A319, Economy Class, Seat 25B

My one visit to the much-praised Turkish Airlines lounge in Istanbul (two years ago) was too short, so I wanted to be sure I had adequate time this round. I was unable to get a boarding pass for the IST-IAH leg in KTM, but it took less than 10 minutes for me to clear special US screening, secure a boarding pass and clear immigration. The agent in IST was unable to print my IAH-PDX boarding pass, which at the time didn’t bother me but in hindsight was something I should have tried harder to procure given my experiences later in the day with United.

The TK lounge has more than doubled in size since my last visit. While crowded upstairs, downstairs had a tremendous number of seats and lots of choices for different areas to pass the time. A huge selection of different foods and drinks, from freshly prepared flatbread and kebabs, to salad bars and coffee stands, could be found around every corner. A special gaming area was located in one corner of the lounge, complete with virtual driving range, a racecar course and Sony Playstations. There was no problem passing three hours before my flight in here!
















After walking to the gate, there was another security check before entering the gate area for the IAH flight, which took about 15 minutes. The aircraft was ready for boarding soon after, and I entered the business cabin before all the other passengers which was good for taking photos. This cabin felt much more modern, and newer than the aircraft the day before. I settled into my seat and eventually the cabin filled to about 21 of 28 passengers. This was the only flight since I’d left PDX (1 of 8) that I’d had someone assigned to the seat next to me!





After distribution of amenity kits, menus and newspapers, we took off about 15 minutes behind schedule and service began shortly thereafter. I was asked for my choice (lamb) and was informed that the other courses would be served by cart so I’d be able to have as many choices as I wanted to try.

Turkish is known for their food, and was not disappointed by either of the meals on this flight. Perhaps it was the “candlelight dining” Do&Co provided, or being served by a chef in chef’s uniform, -- but my expectations were met and exceeded. Each course was extremely well presented, served at proper temperatures, the meats were appropriately cooked, and the choices were flavorful and delicious. While overall the meals may not have been served as crisply, lacked some of the sophistication and complexity of the meals I enjoyed on LH First and Thai First, overall I’d say that the meals in Turkish business were as good if not better than the meals I had on those flight in F.









This flight was a significant step above my experience the previous day. On the hard product side, the seat was much more comfortable, and it went almost completely flat (about 170 degrees). The IFE had newer movies and was more responsive. The map included an exterior camera (always a preferred amenity). The bathroom was larger. The power outlets worked. And the flight had working (and free!) WiFi. In my book that's always a bonus – I completely understand many people’s desire to disconnect and that the airplane is still one of the places where this is possible. To me, however, I like to stay connected and the longer the trip, the stranger it feels to me to not know what is going on elsewhere – so the ability to keep in touch for me is a major help in not having the flight feel so long!





Speaking of long flights, this flight was on the books for 12:50 but ended up taking about 30 minutes extra due to headwinds – making it significantly longer than any other flight. I didn’t really mind, however, because I was comfortable, had a choice of different entertainment options that included watching the world go by below me (why I sit at the window). The flight attendants however had other ideas, and repeatedly asked me to close my window. I had four windows – I was happy to close 3.5 of them, but insisted that I be able to keep one open enough to see out and to get natural light. I can understand asking passengers to close shades on red-eye flights when flying eastbound and getting unnaturally early light, but on daytime flights where I’m not planning to sleep (and want to stay up later to facilitate adjustment to the new time), I refuse to close my shade. I’m sorry if you want to sleep, that's why the airline provided you an eye mask. I don’t feel strongly about a lot of things, but this is one of them. While they were nice enough about it, the FA’s tried to get me to close it, but eventually they relented and I got to keep it open. Rant Off.

I did opt to lie flat to a bed and get a few hours of sleep, which wasn’t too difficult given how long I’d been traveling and the almost completely flat bed. I snagged an extra pillow from a nearby seat that was unassigned and slept about 4 hours. I woke up and watched a few more mindless movies, got a great view of Chicago from 35,000 feet, and we slowly made our way towards IAH.



While we were landing almost 45 minutes behind schedule, this was not mentioned once in the announcements – at least in the English announcements. I found the English proficiency of the Captain and Crew adequate but not as smooth as it could have been – so I admit its entirely possible that they did discuss the delay in Turkish announcements. The economy passengers were held while the business class passengers exited the plane and began the walk towards screening.

I discovered that United had proactively booked me on the next IAH-PDX flight for the following morning, but I still had 70 minutes to make the connection and knew that the inbound aircraft was delayed so I was fairly confident in my ability to make it. Global Entry proved extremely valuable once again as I negotiated zero line at immigration and was the first person at the baggage claim. 10 minutes later the bags started exiting, stopped for another few minutes, and then continued. The two bags I’d checked the previous morning in KTM were among the first 20 off the plane, thanks to the priority tags, and I headed next to the customs counter. There was a long line for customs with a number of flights -- Air China, Turkish and a few United flights from Mexico -- arriving simultaneously, but luckily I noticed an express exit for Global Entry. I was essentially waved through and was in the baggage re-check area less than 20 minutes after landing.

It took about 10 minutes to get in front of a United Agent, who congratulated me on making it through customs through quickly, re-tagged my two bags to PDX, and issued me a boarding pass for – see agent at check-in! My long-reserved seat 7F, IMHO the best seat in domestic Y on a United Airbus – had been given away. I was annoyed, to say the least – I’d tried for months to move this award seat to F but there was never any safer F availability, so had accepted that I’d be finishing this epic award trip in Economy, but to go from TK Business to a yet be assigned seat (or even a bump) was an extremely rude awakening.

I decided to see what I could do at the gate, so made a sweaty dash through security (no Pre-check screening at this late hour at IAH), and a long jog down to gate C-35 where the PDX flight was about to board. The agent there said she thought I’d clear standby but had nowhere but middle seats to assign me. I was soon handed a boarding pass for seat 25B – welcome home! I boarded with group 1, and stowed my bag in the overhead for the 4:45 flight back to PDX. What a change to go from lie-flat to a middle seat in Economy Minus!



The flight was completely full and we took off about 15 minutes late. My extremely jetlagged body was quite confused, and given that I wanted to sleep when getting home, I made the effort to stay awake about 3 hours of the flight, and read while most other passengers snoozed. While not the most comfortable way I could have ended the trip, it was a good return to reality and a reminder that this is how I’d be traveling most of my upcoming trips in my life – far, far away from the glamor and comfort of International First Class.

We made up the delay time in-flight, landed on schedule, taxied to the gate, and about 15 minutes later I was at baggage claim awaiting my bags. A $25 taxi to get me home, and by 1am, more than 50 hours after I’d left KTM, I was finally home.

CONCLUSION:

This was truly a trip of a lifetime, and one I won’t soon forget. The experience of traveling in International First was memorable, fun, and certainly a bit eye-opening – “so this is how the other half lives”. I say that mostly in jest since I know that on many of my international F fights, none or at least very few of the people were actually paying that First fare, and that the majority of trip reports here are about using miles to get into this exclusive world. If you have the cash to spend to buy those tickets, congratulations – but as awesome as it was, I don’t think its where I’d invest an extra $30K I had lying around.

The good life must come to an end, however, but not before our current family vacation (in E+, of course) in LIH. I hope you all enjoyed my first trip report. Comments, criticisms and questions are of course welcome.

Last edited by noah; Mar 27, 2014 at 6:18 pm
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