hfly

The KL 737 experience is nothing to write home about and there is really no difference between any of the seats on such a narrow body a/c.

HohoGAP

That was my presumption, but appreciate the confirmation.

TrojanTraveler

I agree with you completely. I was commenting on what someone said about the Russians potentially putting out a recent travel advisory. Since they've basically stopped most tourism already last year, there's no need

Without the nonstop IST becomes a PITA to which to travel, and that discourages me from making leisure trips (regardless of the security situation). Now I will have fewer excuses and be told that I will have to make more in-law trips to Scandinavia.

MSPeconomist

It's a nice place as long as you can avoid eating all the stinky fish. Maybe try for elk instead of lutefisk?

mnbp

Better lutefisk than surströmming. I had the latter once - it was truly memorable.

McGowan06

I am on a one way from IST-SFO through JFK in July in business. I'd called Gold several times in the last few days, and each RA I got did not know of the route suspension, despite the fact that there's a release on delta.com. They were unwilling to re-accommodate.

Today they called me and the RA was very pleasant on the phone and quite helpful. I'm now on KLM through AMS, which also means I'm in business on a 747 from AMS-SFO. ^

orangeandwhite

We have a round-trip JFK-IST-ADB this summer. For this trip we got the tickets at a large discount through an Expedia "package" (where the package was the flights and a single night of a cheapo hotel that we almost certainly won't use).

After several HUCA iterations we managed to rebook the outbound through CDG, but that was only because the IST-ADB connection also had a schedule change. We had no luck on the return.

The Delta representatives do know (or can learn when prompted) that JFK-IST is not operating, but they apparently have no guidance on how to rebook it and are told to ask people to wait.

I guess there is some drama going on behind the scenes, but it is quite annoying. Meanwhile, the price of the alternative TK flights keeps inching up.

hfly

The price of TK tickets should not be any concern to you. If you are ticketed, DL will have to reroute you, so you have no worries.

orangeandwhite

The negotiation was quite remarkable and unfriendly (and isn't over, because we didn't get the return adjusted). One representative claimed that the reroute had to have availability in the same booking class, and proposed JFK-ORY-CDG-long wait-IST. "Or, you know, we can provide a full refund." Uh oh, other line is ringing, I'll have to call back! On the next call, they offered a refund, but claimed that a reroute would trigger a $200pp change fee. Oops, hit disconnect by accident.

Used to have status on DL, but lost it when I stopped traveling for work, and it seems I have to negotiate through Expedia's Indian call center, so I suppose it might be easier to fix this with a different fact pattern.

Dovster

The Israeli government has and when you consider the risk of terrorist attacks here, and realize that Israel has only done this before (in connection with Egypt), that is really saying something.

hfly

I would then go online, find exactly the alternative flights that you want, write CS an e-mail explaining this, and I am sure they will straighten it out.

iahphx

Looks like DL made a good call here. Not sure if they had any special briefing, or if they just reacted to booking numbers. Obviously, USA leisure bookings to IST will now decline even further.

Besides, anyone wanting to go can fly Turkish. They don't seem to be a "for profit" airline these days, so the Turkish gov't can afford to fly their planes mostly empty. It's perhaps more justifiable than what Emirates, Eitihad and Qatar do.

cmd320

With a net income of over $1 billion in 2015 I'm not sure where you're finding you're information.

iahphx

I think they reported losing more than $400 million in the first quarter alone. Obviously, it's going to get MUCH worse going forward.

And how much assistance do they receive from the gov't? I'm certain it's material. No for-profit company would ever have run their USA Super Bowl ad this year (the definition of lighting money on fire).

MSPeconomist

Lots of people here bought special IST business class sale fares recently. I wonder whether DL will let them change to other destinations or just refund depending on what the USA government says about security there.