Hello all! I've taken the first flight from IAD to IST with my partner (seats 1E and 1F) and wanted to share this brief flight report for those of you who may be wondering how is it like to fly with TK during this pandemic. To begin with, many of my friends have asked me if the middle seats were empty. Unfortunately, I haven't seen if the middle seats were empty.

Check-in:

- Check-in was almost exactly the same as before. People did not care about social distancing, they pretty much lined up exactly the same way that they did before. There were lines for Business/*G and economy passengers.
- You cannot take a piece of carry-on luggage with you but you can take a personal item bag (laptop bag, small backpack, etc). Because I've had many devices with lithium-ion batteries, my personal item bag was pretty full and heavy. However, the check-in personnel did not weigh my personal bag.
- The check-in personnel said that the overhead bins would not be available; however, they were available (at least in the business cabin).

Security and airport:

- The airport was very empty. The TSA personnel asks you to remove your mask when you are going through the passport control (passport control in Turkey did not require that). You can take a 16 oz bottle of hand sanitizer with you. TSA will test the botle before they let you take it.
- All the lounges are closed until further notice (LH, BA, TK were the ones that I've seen).

Boarding:

- No more separate boarding for business and economy. The boarding process starts from the last 5 rows. Once those 5 rows were completed, they started letting the next 5 rows. So, business passengers are the ones to board last. Boarding personnel DID send back people who tried to board earlier than they were supposed to board.
- People did not care about social distancing in the boarding area either. They were mostly good with the masks though. You can see the photo below. We've tried to cover our distance as we were going to board last anyways.
- Boarding personnel did a body temperature check before boarding.



Food and in-flight amenities:

- No amenity bag was distributed. The staff still make your beds.
- Cabin crew gave all of us a form which asks you COVID-related questions with your communication information.
- No hot food, you can see the photos of business food below. The sandwiches were vegetarian.






- In all the flights that I've taken in a TK-operated 787, I have had an instance of a broken seat. The rule did not change, and I've realized that my seat had a broken piece right before landing.





De-planing:

- De-planing started from the front and moved to the back. Although everyone was warned not to stand up before their rows were called, everyone did stand up as soon as the plane approached to the gate. Thus, while I wanted to see if the middle seats were empty when leaving the plane, I couldn't as everyone had already lined up in the corridor.

Security/pre-cautions at IST:

- None. No warnings to isolate yourself for 14 days, no temperature checks. News reported that we would be tested for COVID-19 but there was no testing.
- No separate passport control for Business/*G and other passengers. Having said that, the airport is very empty anyways that you wouldn't wait in lines.
- No priority baggage handling even if the luggages had "priority" tags on them.

That's pretty much all I can think of at the moment but feel free to ask any questions you may have!