Seats were very tight with poor legroom - and I am average height. During the 12 hour flight, tiny paper cups of drinks we're only offered during the super and breakfast services, with the crew nowhere to be seen in between. One of the bathrooms was out of order, leading to long lines waiting to use the remaining two available to the economy class passengers.
Turkish Airlines is a solid airline. They use the less trustworthy Boeing airplanes on this route (VCE-IST) so the flights more bumpy then when I have flown on Airbus planes, but it was okay. The service good. They seem to offer a reasonable selection if movies, although no way to listen to them as they didn't provide me earpieces. The food was surprisingly good. The day was uncomfortable. The flight was on time.
We had requested a wheel chair assist for my husband who has Parkinson’s. The first seat we came to we got off the plane was staffed by 3 men-one was on his cell phone, one was sleeping and the fellow we spoke with was rude and seemed as if he didn’t care that we had a plane to catch in one hour. A person with a wheel chair came and took us to the center area for wheelchairs. Here we waited for 20-25 minutes while our flight went to “boarding.” Finally a woman came with a cart and we zipped through the airport.
Staff could have been friendlier and offered drinks more often
It was disapointing during the wait in Cancun. It took several hours to clean and they told us during that time we could not stand, use the bathroom, have service etc.
Turkish Airlines inflight crew was very good, however the ground crew was not very helpful. I had booked a wheelchair for my mother from Islamabad and she received the service there, but then there was no chair on arrival at Istanbul. The wheelchair crew said that they declined to take any person without a reservation and declined to help with the arrangement of a reservation. I had to use the airport buggy system to transport my mother who has limited mobility and needs a wheelchair. It was very disappointing and I hope they can provide manual wheelchair access to the public by a need basis, as sometimes there is a mix up or technical fault in the completion of the process, as it was in our case. Also, there can be an emergent need for passengers if they have illnesses like hypertension or diabetes. My mother has both hypertension and diabetes and has residual weakness after a stroke, therefore, she needs assistance. I hope that this text will be taken seriously and the administration makes the necessary changes. Thanks.
It would be great if the flight attendants could inform people travelling with small children that at take off and landing the children should drink liquid or chew/swallow something so their ears don’t hurt. Also, Emirates serves the food to the children first. Really good idea. Best of all would be to put all children in the same area.
Everything was good except that they didn’t give us seat for our connecting flight in Istanbul from Cairo. This created a panic situation. Hopefully they give all customers connecting flights seats right from the start.
Customer service was poor everywhere. In particular in business class lounge. Stewardess were however excellent. No ability to order more than one dietary restriction in food that created awkward situations when I was offered bulgur due to being diabetic as I was also gluten free
Chicago to Istanbul was a much better experience than I expected since I’m more accustomed to Qatar Airways business class. The business lounge in the Istanbul airport was amazing - loved the lockers and phone charging stations, and the bathroom was a spa experience in itself. The onward leg from Istanbul to Karachi was utterly disappointing. Terrible plane, and I felt like I was in economy - the seats don’t come near to lying flat and the food was mediocre. What a sad downgrade - it isn’t as though the ticket on that leg was cheaper. So, on that front, there’s no contest with Qatar airways.
