We flew ORD-IST on Sunday night, flight was diverted to Gaziantep (for those who don't know the name, Google Map will show it's ~100 km from Aleppo, Syria, because of weather in IST. No announcement was ever made about snow storm in IST during the flight or when we were diverted.
Flight took off after refueling and landed in IST around 10:30 PM Monday night. No ground staff to direct customers, and no display boards for flight information. TK transfer desk (wait in line) copied everyone's passport and boarding pass and sent everyone through passport control. After passport control we were directed to a desk that collected the copy of passport and boarding pass and issued visa. Then we're out of the secure area into bagge claim with no idea what the hell we were supposed to do.
We went upstairs to departure and found Business Class check in counters (Economy counters had enormous lines) and got rebooked to CDG fro 11:05 AM Tuesday. We were then told to go to Hotel Desk downstairs. That's when the confusion continued. Hotel Desk told us everyone had to wait in the hotel line, which was the 3 hours plus before they closed. The Hotel Desk guy even told me (flat out lie, and he should have just said he didn't know) that TK Lounge was closed. I went back upstairs to Business Class check in counter to confirm TK Lounge was open. At this point it was around 1 AM Tuesday. That's when we went through passport control and to the TK Lounge. Total duration in Turkey with visa was 1-1/2 hr, got to be a record.
Flight to CDG Jan. 10 was delayed a few times until 3:50 PM with no announcements at the gate and no display board at the gate. We arrived at Paris at ~5 PM and no luggage. Filed missing luggage report and just waited with no word for 3 days before they were delivered on Friday Jan. 13.
Yes, TK in flight service is great. TK Lounge is great, even with the huge crowd. I can deal with weather, missed connections, and cancelled flights. But TK customer service is abysmal during IRROPS.
This is why I will never fly TK during the winter.