Flying to Istanbul
 

This may belong on a different thread, but has anyone had any experience with Turkish Airlines? We will be flying from ATH to IST and then from IST to LHR in June - input appreciated.

Flew them Istanbul to JFK in 2000 I believe, totally loved them. Very surprized by how nice a flight it was. Comparable to any other airline I've flown trans atlantic.

flew them lhr-ist v.v and a few ist-ankara, izmir-ist flights, very nice, well maintained planes and meals! Remember those?

lala

I've taken many flights on them within Turkey, and one external IST-ATH. I concur with lalala. Service on the flights is always good.

Sometimes boarding can be hectic, though.

Have taken them from New York to Istanbul (was quite regular at the time as I worked for a Turkish ibank) and several domestic flights plus to Israel/Kazakhstan/London, etc...

I think they are a very good airline with good service and nice planes....plus the miles linkup with AA is easy.

I've flown Istanbul to Adana and back on Turkish Airlines several times. Seem fine to me, only things different are. They did the safety talk in Turkish, in Adana they set the luggage on the ground outside the plane and before boarding you need to point to it for them to load and the same when getting off. Of course your on flight snack was Turkish food.

Turk Hava Yollari
 

Turkish Airlines or Turk Hava Yollari is a great airline, I have flown them from IST-ESB(Ankara) and ESB-IST-JFK.

Their employees are really nice and they actually serve free food on all flights. I cannot say enough about TK and encouragne anybody thinking about flying them to give them a try.

They fly one of the newest fleets in Europe and their pilots are second to none as they are all ex-Turkish Airforce pilots.

Dan

Thanks for the input - am now looking forward to flying them instead of BA!

They are excellent and a first-rate airline. I flew them from Athens to Istanbul; Istanbul to Ankara; Ankara to Izmir; and Izmir to Istanbul. All legs of those flights were fine.

I concur! THY is a great airline--though my experience is limited to IST-ankara (esb) and esb-izmir runs. They were much better in Y than KL was in J on my AMS-IST flight.

I will say what I always have. Certain aspects of THY are great, and others are terrible. As far as aircraft, pilots, safety or security (or even seating in many cases)are concerned, THY is second to none and has been far superior to many US and/or Euro carriers for quite awhile now. Where they often fall flat on their face is in the field of customer service.

HAving lived in Turkey for many many years, THY was for awhile my carrier of choice and I flew them everywhere frequently, but rarely do so today. If you are going to fly them once or twice you may not spot the problems (or as one poster has said above - they offer free food - if you think that is a great perk, what can I say). Basically if anything goes wrong with your THY flight experience, you are screwed. THY will very often NOT protect you on another carrier when things go wrong, and will often try to make you stay hours if not days in a location in order to keep you with their airline. If they lose your bags for a week, good luck in getting compensation, and often in the summer their FA's are college students that work part time for $3 an hour, and are useless. Ticket agents at CTO's in foreign stations are prone to lie, etc.

I still fly them domestically in Turkey, but gave up on them in Europe quite a few years ago. If I were visiting Turkey only once in a blue moon and flying economy, I would however fly them as their long haul Econ product is quite good compared to everyone else.

Customer Service Is Poor
 

hfly is right, their customer service is poor. I however, have been very luck to never have to deal with any issues that would involve customer service and TK.

On a side note, I like the college students who work for TK over the summers as some of them are really hot :p :p :p