imdoug

I want to book an award flight in J and fly the new TK 787 seats. I found a flight next year from IST to YVR that shows 787-9, but the seat map on both Expert Flyer and the Turkish Airlines website shows 2-3-2 seating (the 777 configuration). Strangely, the return flight that same day shows the correct 787 seat map. One week later, the opposite happens: the 787 seat map shows up on the flight to YVR but the return flight shows the 777 configuration. I called the airline and asked. She said that you can only book seats 100 days before the flight and that it is probably a mistake. She confirmed that a 787-9 is scheduled to fly that day. If I begin the process of buying a ticket on their website, however, I could select the middle seat, which does not exist on the 787, and the website did not complain.

Any insight into this? Do you think it's a mistake and it's safe to book this flight? Or should I book a different flight? (Other flights, unfortunately, seem to require overnight layovers in connecting U.S. cities.)

gr8pirate

My guess is TK really do intend to fly that route with a 787 or the new 350, both of which feature the new seat. However airplane swaps can always happen, and they are just now figuring out the post-covid-grounding schedule.

So chances are it will be the new seat, but no one can guarantee it at this point.

IAN-UK

Best book the flight while award seats are available, and resign yourself to the aircraft fate gives you. Otherwise you'll spend the intervening months in a state of high anxiety.

Nothing is certain with TK aircraft allocation: but if the timetable shows a 787 then it's more likely that's what you'll. Nowhere near certain, mind: just more likely than not.

Imagine how sick you'd feel if you went for the more expensive route with an overnight stopover, only to find there'd been a switch of aircraft....

A4K

I think they may have been updating schedules today - I had the same thing happen, they ended up swapping a 787 for 777 for a flight in a few weeks. I went to assign my seats today and saw 787 as the aircraft but 777 seat map, I just re-checked and the flight is now a 777. Re-check the schedule and see what aircraft is running on the date of travel.

Not sure when your flight is, but I would expect a lot of swapping and schedule changes to happen over the next few months, so if you are only booking the flight to fly a 787 I wouldn't bank on anything sticking.

TGGDEL

Checking my July 10th flight from ORD, which has been 789 since booking a week or so ago and now switched to a 77W according to EF.
Maybe their flights are going out so full they feel the need to up-gauge?