[Anonymous]

[MayaNaji]

My only 2 times flying Turkish Airlines and definitely my last.
both times, flying from the middle east to Dublin, flights get cancelled due to technical problems.with a 13 months old baby, waking up at 4 am and missing the flight connection, this is not the best experience!
Turkish Airlines has advantages, reasonable ticket prices, 30 Kg,but come on, you can’t do this all the time! board customers with long connections then re-route them with hours and hours of delays.
Get your planes checked more..and hope you act!!

Maya Naji Bagaeen
Dublin – Ireland

[SimonRowberry]

Interesting post. I can add to this by suggesting that they are also somewhat unsafe. I’ve flown them on eight sectors in the last three months (BHX-IST-GYD return, twice, both times in Business). The first return journey from Baku was on 25 February, a few hours after their B737 had come down on approach at Schiphol. It was somewhat surreal entering the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge at Baku to be confronted by large TVs showing news footage of the crash, just minutes before getting on a TK B737 myself. I thought that their PR people had made a slight miscalculation…..little had I realised at that point how little TK understand about public relations (please read on!).

Anyway, that’s an aside, rather than my substantive point. I flew the same sector (GYD-IST) on June 4 (TK 1339), in seat 2F. The flight left Baku at 05.25, so most people chose to sleep once on board. Once the ‘fasten seat belt’ signs went on, on approach to Istanbul, the crew made no attempt to ask the three other passengers in my row to put their seat backs up. I was faced with the unsatisfactory situation of seeing most passengers in the J Cabin keeping their seats reclined until the plane came to a standstill and the door was opened. This was despite the fact that the cabin crew, seated on the jump seats at the front, could clearly see that the seats were still reclined. I should point out that these were substantive Business Class seats, which would have made it even more difficult to evacuate, had there been a problem.

To make matters worse, I immediately asked to see a supervisor when I arrived at TK’s CIP Lounge, to express my concerns. I was refused “permission” to speak to a supervisor, and the woman on the desk got increasingly aggressive as I tried to explain the seriousness of my complaint. She then stormed off; two male colleagues then said “We refuse to speak to you” and sent me to Coventry (figuratively, of course, rather than to the former low cost airport in the West Midlands!). Childish as well as bloody irresponsible.

Given that ONLY twelve weeks earlier, some 9 people had died when a TK B737 crashed on approach, one would have thought that safety would have been a paramount concern (especially on landing). Evidently not. The attitude of the ground staff was outrageous and dismissive.

Unfortunately, I do not believe that Turkish Airlines display the standards expected of a ‘mainstream’ European airline, and they act very much like a developing world carrier. Indeed, that’s probably grossly unfair to many developing world carriers who would never countenance such an attitude or approach to safety.

Turkish have lost all future business from me and my Company, despite the convenience of their Birmingham-Baku connections. I would rather pay 50% or so more on Lufthansa and at least feel I had a reasonable chance of getting there safely.

Simon Rowberry, Warwickshire UK

[BABenji]

Turkish lost my business in May 2004 when I flew LHR-IST-ADB. The planes were shabby, the service was awful (I can relate to the experience of SimonRowberry) and landing on all four legs (outbound and return) made Ryanair look like as light footed as a ballet dancer by comparison. Never again.

[Airpocket]

Instead of s#######g up all that money on expensive ads starring Kevin Costner maybe Turkish ought to use the money to start improving the basics?

[SimonRowberry]

This is the thread I was referring to.

It doesn’t appear under the Turkish Airlines category within “Airlines”, but there are also some relevant threads there too.

Simon

[Bucksnet]

Talking about hard landings and safety, yesterday a Turkish A340 made a bad landing at BRU. The plane approached too fast, bounced on landing and one of the engines hit the ground. TK had to send another plane to operate the return.

[AMcWhirter]

There is some information about this mishap on a Belgian aviation website:

http://www.luchtzak.be/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=43276&sid=e6dc6c36a3f3aa9baefba4fc77559c47

[transtraxman]

I recently saw on BBC World News an advert for Turkish Airlines. The protagonists of the advert were the members of Man. United FC. Does this not say something about their confidence in the airline and consequently the effect on bookings? Of course Turkish Airlines are one of the sponsors of the team.

[BusinessTraveller]

For anyone interested, Turkish Airlines has unveiled a complete rebranding, including interiors, logo and livery. More information can be seen at:

http://www.businesstraveller.com/news/turkish-airlines-unveils-rebrand

[Potakas]

Transtraxman, you are right they have dedicated airplanes for M.U. and Barcelona F.C.,

http://www.worldbulletin.net/images/news/69217.jpg

http://dmm.travel/typo3temp/pics/Turkish_Airlines_B_7_97ad9315a5.jpg

As often happens with their service… Barcelona had to travel with this :

http://www.totalbarca.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Xavi-Busquets-Valdes-480×373.jpg

The Airplane was the Club football de Braga’s …. couldn’t get worst for Barcelona.

Regards

Potakas

[Tom Otley]

More about Turkish (from the Financial Times)

Turkish Airlines: Expansion during recession pays off
By Pelin Turgut

“The beleaguered global airline industry has seen tough times. But as other full-service carriers struggled with the impact of high fuel costs and the recession hit demand, Turkish Airlines (THY) has been expanding rapidly to become Europe’s fourth-largest carrier….”

to preserve copyright, please click through here to read

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8b1d3bac-00d8-11e0-aa29-00144feab49a.html#axzz17PoQHZLv

[skyguy79]

A hijack in the year 2011 ??
And which airline is it that has carried this hijacker ?
Fly THY !!!! Unbelievable !!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12127570?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

And another joke is that they are buying and codesharing on some of PIA’s routes in Europe !!

[FlyingChinaman]

Not having travelled on Turkish airlines for almost 4 years, I was pleasantly surprised by the vast improvement on one of their new 777-300ER plane from Bangkok to Istanbul last week

My Business Class seat was highly comfortable for both upright and sleeping position and felt rather spacious. The catering quality was also much improved as there was a Sky-chef on board handling the food. Presentation was good with nice Chinaware (inspired by LH I think) and my main course was on a par with SQ service (pasta with green asparagus and artichoke hearts). Restaurant quality. TK is one of the few airlines which still serve soup in between courses. A refinement worth preserving.

FA were very courteous but rather formal.

My second leg from IST to CDG was also nice in a B737. The food service was in fact far better than many of the European airlines and their after-diner liqueurs and cognac were served from a full sized bottle rather than miniatures.

I did not feel there was a maintance/security issue with their planes despite of their dubious past. I will not hesitate travelling on TK again, I only wish TK would stop bombarding us with their horrible TV ads with Kevin Kostner and Manchester United.

On departing IST, I went into their newly refurbished premium lounge and although it looked newer and brighter. It is still not a world-class airine lounge.

Lastly any airlines can have highjackers and it is not a reason for not travelling by Turkish because of one recent incident!

[MayaNaji]

Flying Chinaman,

Your feedbacks are highly motivating especially that I myself live in Bangkok now, however your experience is based on business class and not on economy on which most of normal people use!
As well, you talked about the food extensively while my concern were delays ( try flight delays for a full day with a baby!) and other people concerns are security and maintenance!

[Author]

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