ISTFlyer

A completely valid assumption that I totally agree.
If TK has passengers that are OK with the current service level compared to the price they pay, why should they improve their onboard service?

ankomonkey

Years ago, I used a hairdressing salon that gave you a stamp for each paid visit. If you collected 9 stamps then your next visit was free. So is this this stealing or taking advantage of a promotion offered by the company? How about buy-one-get-one-free offers in supermarkets?

YVRELITE

I think you are missing a vital part here, I was directed by my travel agent to Google forums that can help shine light on TK service in J class. This is the forum that came up, I have no intention nor had intention of collecting points but now that I am here I can see how corrupted some people are to points.

How do you get these points ? to me the abuse starts if you get "free" points for flying each mile you get a point? That means people who fly more get more but I only fly once a year max for my 2 week holiday. In fact everyone on the planet has 2 or 3 weeks holiday they won't be able to fly more than once or twice a year so there is no way to collect miles that is worth it long term. Rather than collecting miles why don't people stick to minimizing cost on each individual flight as I was told by my travel agent. You are saving cash on the spot rather than collecting gimmicky miles.

Next, my issue is that the people who somehow cheat the system and accumulate enough miles to fly are doing it on a expense of someone else. Like their company for example, they fly because they have to not because they want to. Because you are forced to fly shouldn't mean you'll collect points. If I ever own a business ill ensure only my reward account is used for bookings, its an insult to let employees fly for company and steal reward points on those flights. I would imagine bosses who allow this type of behavior have very unprofitable companies.

I am surprised and disappointed by the mindset of the people on here please keep in mind you are a very very small minority and hopefully a dying breed as reward programs get eliminated in these cv19 times.

cheltzel

+1

Any airline is free to put forth any combination of hard and soft product. It is all dependent on their business model. And the consumer will decide if that model is successful or not.

As their customers, we can choose to purchase a given airline product or not. In the end, that is really all there is. I believe the cutback in service, especially in business class, will eventually cause a loss of revenue. Maybe not on people flying direct to IST but it will eventually hurt them everywhere else.

asnovici

I have been booking TK paid Business and award Business only because they are the only game in town to VKO these days. BA flies to DME and I do use them half the time. For any other flights to anywhere I would not even think using TK because of their service these days. As soon as Russia opens up to more airlines for connections there will be no paid TK flights for me for a while I hope.

ISTFlyer

I respect your opinion, although there is a point.
We get those points from traveling, staying at hotels, renting cars and using credit cards that have a partnership with the airline.
Believe me or not, I am not working on a job that requires travel but yes, having loyalty saves me money in the long-run as I explained it in my previous post and I save money rather than purchasing the cheapest ticket for each of my individual trips.

One of the important perks of working in a big company is that they honor you the miles for the travel that the company had paid for.
I don't know what kind of business you're working at but there are people that choose their employers based on their travel policy. The miles are something that the company gifts their staff as a reward in this case.

I don't know where you are based but there are more than 2.5 million Star Alliance Gold members in the world and I've read that the major US3 has more than 10 million frequent flyer members each.

ISTFlyer

By the way, you've mentioned travel agent and minimizing costs. Not using a travel agent and booking everything yourself directly from the airline saves you money.
Travel agents generally earn commision from your ticket as an additional service fee that the airline would not collect.

fil_87

Because many major airlines are slowing resuming the old service level. Let’s not forget that Turkish Airlines has been named Turkey’s most valuable brand for a while now. The Turkish government has invested a fortune in building up TK brand & to position it as a premium global carrier in the past years. Yet TK management was able to destroy in few months what took years to build. Have you read some of the recent reviews on Skytrax? Someone refers to TK as ‘the Spirit Airlines of the transatlantic flights’.

ISTFlyer

I agree with your comment on the reputation part, IMO, TK's reputation is decreasing day by day.

However, if you look at the situation from a marketing perspective, it should be noticeable that TK flights are currently close to full, and customers still fly TK for obvious reasons. Yes, the management was not able to handle the situation well as other airlines, plus TK's customer service is not the best; however, there are people still flying TK. One way or another, they are filling out their planes and earning money.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, there are people who pay 5 times more for TK Business Class just for the extra space on domestic flights, plus 15 kilograms of baggage allowance. Also, again, while Lufthansa, Swiss, KLM, etc... are flying empty long-haul planes and cargo makes the most profit; whereas TK long-haul flights are usually full in both cabins.

kq747

Yes- that is exactly how the airlines are marketing themselves so why should people not do exactly what a business/airline encourage them to? As I said before, I travel for leisure on my own dime and build my points up to use for upgrades to J mostly and so even leisure travelers can use them. I also am cost conscious when booking tickets.

Some of the largest companies and most profitable businesses in the world operate this way including all the major consulting firms (PWC, EY, Deloitte, Bain, BCG, Accenture, McKinsey, KPMG) where people travel every week for work and airlines/hotels negotiate rates with these companies to gain the business of this weekly travel and thus loyalty of their employees who earn miles and status. Why shouldn't they earn it? They are the ones traveling and staying away from home most of the week! It is part of accepting a job at one those companies and the reward is you get to keep the points/ miles like any other company perk like holidays or free snacks. How people use it, is up to them.

In fact here is an article about some of United top business travel clients showing that Apple alone spends $150M a year on business travel and this is just one airline: https://9to5mac.com/2019/01/14/unite...gest-customer/

azj

I was ok with it only because I knew what to expect. I wanted a nonstop flight to IST, so that was what was most important to me. The food, while important was secondary. The flight was quite full in both directions, so obviously people are willing to fly TK, despite the poor temporary catering.

Amil

i dont think a lot of people realize whats being offered on the flight or even know that other airlines have full catering again.

ISTFlyer

Yes, I totally understand that the meal was not your priority choosing the airline you would travel. Every passenger has different priorities.
In my post which you quoted and some other ones that I recently posted, I was trying to imply the same thing to those who think that it's a must for TK to return their pre-COVID catering.
Currently, TK flights are generally full at the moment like your flights, so I was asking members who implies that a decent catering is a must, why should TK re-instate their old catering if they would lose money from their profits. By the way, the same applies to BA as well; there are many people who complain about the reduced catering over there but still continue to fly BA.

Some people do want to fly direct in order to minimize the potential exposure of the COVID-19 virus and save some time, etc..., so in this case for most routes ex-IST, TK is a monopoly. There are also some people who don't care about the catering and pay for their food from their own pocket ( even when flying paid J ) at the airport but cares most about a lie-flat seat and better sleep comfort.

I really care about both the hard and the soft product that I pay for, so I choose my airline accordingly.

When I'm flying transatlantic I don't mind leaving the night before ( 00:55 departure from SAW ) and sleep onboard so I fly QR for a lower price and better service both on the ground and the air rather than using a TK departure around 13:00-14:00 and arriving at my destination about around the same time.

airoli

I have upcoming travel booked on TK. I don't appreciate what they are doing on the catering front but

• in this world of dramatically reduced flying, they are the only convenient option between my O&D
• I have many TK miles coming up for expiry which TK did not, unlike my status, extend

So the choice for me was "redeem miles that would otherwise expire for a convenient connection and live with poor catering" or "pay hard cash to travel on a less desirable day, or with a very long layover, on another airline which offers only buy-on-board to begin with".

In this situation, I have to admit, TK does fine. I believe most people understand that these are unusual times and I am not convinced their brand reputation will be lastingly impacted.
(I will add that TK did, unlike the LH Group, relatively swiftly refund me for tickets cancelled in the past few months due to Covid-19. - they won some goodwill there.)

IAN-UK

The two sides to this debate still don't get it

For some passengers the fuss of the onboard service and the lavishness of the drinks and meals are what makes the business-class an experience worth paying for.

Other passengers could care less about meals. They're happy to read, watch, listen, work, sleep: and snack off whatever they're given.

There's no right or wrong!!!

The first group are free to throw a connection into their journey. It increases cost, travel time and faff but that's the accepted trade-off for onboard service. Throw in other considerations such as frequent-flyer programmes and the general geekiness of FTers, and it makes even more sense.

But understand that for others, convenience, comfort and peace of mind are what rule choice of carrier. In the current climate a dramatic show of hygiene precautions maybe trumps the meal-time theatre.

For me, I cant remember when i entered an aircraft hungry, and on post-midnight departures from IST I find the 2am meal service intrusive - and every bit as annoying as being woken up three hours before landing for breakfast.



TK will eventually get bounced back into the old service levels when full competition comes back. But for the moment there's absolutely no need for them to do so: indeed, the sparseness of service may well gives them an edge in the current market.