personally I flew with them once back to Italy (actually we did a stop first in the UK, then went back from Milan). The airplane they mostly fly to TPE is old, but this is relevant only if flying business class (the dreaded middle seat like old Emirates 777s).
I liked the food, service is ok, prices are getting steep indeed, but can still find some decent deals. IST airport is a cash grabbing machine for the government to get as much foreign currency as possible due to the laughable value of the Turkish Lira now. DO NOT BUY ANYTHING AT THE AIRPORT!!! Lounges at IST are fine.
I am flying with them from Rome - Istanbul - Taipei.
I cancelled the Qatar flight just in case right now, annoying as I won’t earn Q points for this flight. I hope QR lowers the threshold for emerald this year due to the conflict.
What surprised me in from Rome to Istanbul is 3 hours and I’m flying on a A350 widebody but on the way back from Istanbul to Rome it’s A121 narrow body in one of those european “business class seats”
I’ve not flew with them with business, hope it will be good.
I took Turkish Airlines for a 2-week trip to Europe and came back on Friday.
There is not much to say about the airline. The best thing for me is the late departure times (from Taipei and also from Amsterdam and Istanbul). Worked great. Early afternoon from Frankfurt or Amsterdam is not an option anymore with the German railway system reliably late (every effing single train, some 2 hours late, some not coming at all).
Economy exit row seat was fine, food so-so. But I had some ayran on the flight to Istanbul .
The flight attendants wear unfortunate, ill-fitting gray outfits, but that’s their problem. Istanbul airport was so-so {did not have time to explore the city}, but I like Amsterdam; I even had a shower there (20Euro). Holland always feels so much more relaxed than Germany. The flight attendants on a short KLM flight I took from France were all smiles and in good spirits.
Would I do that route again? Maybe. But flying with Xiamen Air via China last year felt slightly better.
what has happened to German rail? They need to get some consultants from Japan to shape things up. Even TRA in Taiwan is pretty much on time by comparison? Or are they?
Turkish has a daily Istanbul to sFO that is pretty popular, high load factors i hear. They are a pretty large airline too. Seems not all that great if mainland Chinese airlines are better.
Turkish flies quite a few cities in Europe, did not fly to home airport to avoid the train? (In Italy it flies to quite a few cities). The airport in Istanbul is huge and long walks, the lounge is great but maybe more than one big one would be nice.
It’s interesting now Italian rail system seems better overall, from the bullet trains the local ones. German transport (rail, autos) are in decline. Japan, Taiwan and China now have good systems.
Amsterdam and Frankfurt are about the same in distance from my place, but I like to avoid the coldness of FRAport and the horrible DB experience as much as possible.
Too old and understaffed. Consultants won’t help. Money might.
A lot of mechanical failures, signals not working, communication systems not working, and then the ripple effect in a rather complex network. Taiwan is easy, basically one loop around the island.
Yeah. Frankfurt airport is just too big. Turkish I remember flies to Cologne-Bonn and Dusseldorf, easier airport travel into/out (though ticket maybe bit higher with the tax)
the price difference was only $100. Hope it was the right decision
.