Here I’m reviewing Turkish Airlines Economy on a 3 hour flight from Istanbul to Zurich. There were a few issues like us paying in advance for seats only for the reservation to disappear at check-in. Departure was also delayed by 1 hour after some chaos of a last minute gate change. But once on the plane, an Airbus A321-200, everything was great. The seats were comfy and had a big tv. You also get a full meal service, which is almost unheard of on short haul flights in Europe. So please enjoy my Turkish Airlines Review!
Istanbul Airport
Istanbul Airport is probably the most impressive airport I’ve ever been to. First of all it is jaw-droppingly massive. Opened in 2019 it actually has the largest single airport terminal building in the world. The scale still blows my mind, and the picture below doesn’t really do it justice. The downside of the massive scale though is that getting around the terminal can take ages. Luckily our gate for this flight was very close to the main area. But it can take 15 min of walking if you’re at one of the further gates (as we found out when we arrived a few days earlier). Also, once you’re in the plane taxiing can take ages too. When we landed previously we were taxiing for over 20 minutes before arriving at our gate (and ended up being delayed 2 hours overall).
The biggest downside of the new airport is probably its location. It is a pain to get here. You can get a shuttle bus from a few locations in Istanbul to the airport for only £3 or so. But this can take upwards of 1.5 hours depending on traffic. Or you could pay extra for a private transfer. Instead we opted for the newly opened metro line (you can find the map here). The M11 line takes about 30 minutes to get from Kağıthane to the main airport terminal. The downside is that to get from where we were staying to Kağıthane took about 30 minutes. And there was a lot of walking between metro lines, plus the metro station at Istanbul airport is somehow 10 minutes walk from the main terminal. So the metro option still took us over an hour and involved a lot of walking.
Getting through to the departure zone can be a hassle too. On entering the terminal you go through a brief security checkpoint where you need to just put your luggage through a scanner. You don’t have to take liquids or laptops out yet, that comes later. Once passing the first security check you can drop of your checked luggage or check in. Then there is a passport control checkpoint which was relatively busy so took about 15 minutes. Finally there is a full security check (liquids & laptops out of the bag) which took another 15 min. Overall it was quite efficient but a bit of a process with 3 seperate checkpoints.
Ticket and Flight Details
I bought a return ticket from Zurich to Istanbul in their basic “EcoFly” class. That includes a large cabin bag up to 8kg plus a personal item but no checked luggage. So per person it ended up costing about £270 each. That is quite expensive but largely because we chose more convenient flight times which cost more. Searching on their site the return can be had for as low as £200. Compare that to low cost carriers like Pegasus who offer it as low as £85 and Turkish Airlines Economy are certainly more expensive. But given they charge extra for seats, food and hand luggage whilst Turkish doesn’t the cost becomes much closer.
A strange thing that happened is that come check-in, the seats we had reserved disappeared and we were prompted to pay again if we wanted to reserve seats. You can even see in the original ticket breakdown below it includes £11 each for seat selection. And those seats were for this leg of the trip as we hadn’t reserved seats on the outbound leg. Anyway, I had to pay £11 each at online check in again and chose the same seats I had originally booked, 17A & 17B. I did later ask Turkish support for a refund of the seat selection fee and they eventually did after I showed them the original confirmation with the seat reservation that they deleted.
Now, we could have flown with Pegasus Airlines or Anadolujet for maybe half the price. But then we would have paid extra for seats, food and baggage. And the seat is much worse.
Plane & Seat
On this flight we flew on a 10 year old Airbus A321-200 with registration TC-JSJ. You can read in more details about this aircraft on the Turkish Airlines website here. According to SeatGuru it has 12 seats in Business and 176 in Economy. I sat in seat 17A which is about halfway through the cabin.
The seat itself is probably the best I’ve had on a European airline in Economy. It doesn’t quite compare to the likes of Singapore Airlines A350 or Cathay Pacific’s A330, both of which they use on short haul flights. However, neither of those are in Europe. And compared to any European airline, these seats are vastly superior. The leather seat is comfy and very well cushioned compared to most modern seats which feel like sitting on a wooden bench. There is a plush adjustable headrest. And, again unlike other European airlines, they have a tv screen to watch stuff on.
Legroom was above average as far as Airbus A321 seats go. Especially compared to the likes of Wizzair or even British Airways who use these planes on similar routes. It was hard to determine the exact amount of legroom as Turkish have quite a few variants of the A321 and don’t state the dimensions outright. But I believe the seat pitch was 31-31″ which is pretty decent.
The IFE System in Turkish Airlines Economy cabin was great too. With a large screen and plenty of options to watch it will keep you busy on a long or short flight. Headphones are provided, though annoyingly, the audio port on my seat was completely broken, so no tv for me. Luckily the inflight map is good too showing lot’s of details and stats about the flight.
Food & Drink Service
The food was definitely the highlight of this trip. It’s almost unheard of to get a 3 course hot meal in Economy class on a 3 hour flight in Europe. Even a lot of business class flights would only serve you a cold meal. So the fact that Turkish offer all this in Economy is excellent.
There was a choice of meatballs or vegetarian pasta. As you can see below, I opted for the meatballs. To start there was some sort of tasty dip which reminded me of coronation chicken sauce. The main was two large meatballs covered in cheese and a tomato, then a tomato and chickpea salad with rice. Dessert was a very tasty mousse that tasted like creme caramel. Then warm bread, water and a drink of you choice. I opted for orange juice here but on my previous flight went for a Turkish white wine which was delicious.
Overall the meal was great. Whilst the main wasn’t overly flavourful, the starter and dessert made up for that. And just small touches like metal cutlery, salt and pepper and a wet wipe made it better than some long haul flights I’ve taken. Just look at British Airways idea of dinner on a 14 hour flight here. Also, another comparison with British Airways… on the 4 hour flight from London to Istanbul they would only give you a snack and a bottle of water.
After the main meal was served they also had a hot drink service where you could choose from tea or coffee. Again, a really great meal service for a 3 hour flight in Europe. I don’t think any other large European airline offers anything close to this.
Service & Delays
Everything was going smoothly until we arrived at our gate. As we were waiting our boarding time came and went and our plane hadn’t even arrived yet. Eventually a plane arrived but shock! There was a “technical issue” with it so after a few minutes of confusion they announced a gate change. This involved all of the 200+ people on this full flight rushing halfway accross the airport to the new gate. We had to wait about 30 min at the new gate before boarding started and all told departure was delayed by about 1 hour. Considering they had to switch gate and aircraft the delay is understandable, and not as bad as it could be. But it was still annoying, and we had a connection on arrival in Zurich so this delay was eating into that which made it quite stressful.
Inflight the cabin crew were pretty good. Though besides when they handed out the meal I had zero interaction with them so can’t really comment.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I think Turkish Airlines’ inflight Economy product is the best in Europe. No other premium airline in Europe would even consider serving a full meal on a flight of this length. And you get a large tv with a good range to movies to watch. Service from the cabin crew was friendly too, though a bit inefficient and confused. The price is also on the more premium side but you do get a premium experience for that price so no complaints.
My first issue is that they somehow lost our seat reservations even after we had paid extra for them. I had to pay for seats again at check-in, but I did later complain and they refunded me the seat cost. And then there was a last minute gate change which meant everyone had to rush accross the airport. In the end we only arrived 45min late and I understand these things happen. But given my previous Turkish Airlines flight was delayed by 2 hours I would hesitate to fly them again, especially on a connecting flight.
More from me…
Please feel free to check out other related posts I’ve written:
- Malaysia Airlines Economy A350-900 – Great food on a 13 hour flight
- No1 Lounge at London Gatwick South – Surprisingly good
- Singapore Airlines Economy from London to Singapore – As Good as People Say?
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