Turkish Airlines (TK) will soon stop offering a premium economy (branded as Comfort Class) product on its Hong Kong–Istanbul service.
According to the airline, it will begin deploying a newly delivered Boeing 777-300ER to replace the current model (also a B777-300ER) as of April 13, 2015.
Turkish Airlines' Boeing 777-300ER
However, unlike the existing model, which offers 63 seats in premium economy, the incoming B777-300ER will instead only offer a two class cabin layout, with 49 seats in business and 300 in economy.
The loss of premium economy will be compensated by an additional 21 seats in business and 54 in economy.
Business class
So what will happen to the existing B777-300ER? Speaking to Business Traveller Asia-Pacific, a spokesperson for TK said the aircraft would be re-deployed onto the Istanbul–Seoul service.
This move follows a similar trend seen with TK’s flights to Houston, which offered a premium economy product until July 28. Since then, the aircraft serving the route has been re-distributed, and now operates on flights to Sao Paulo/Buenos Aires.
No more premium economy
The same will soon apply to the carrier’s flights to Shanghai. Effective from September 22, the service will no longer offer premium economy, and the operating aircraft will be re-assigned to TK’s services to Guangzhou.
In the long run, the airline will be looking to retire the premium economy product from its entire B777-300ER fleet. First announced by TK chief executive Temel Koti last year at the IATA AGM (see here), it has now been confirmed that all subsequent deliveries of the aircraft will no longer offer this cabin class.
IFE system in premium economy
“The new B777 aircrafts joining the fleet [over] the next three years will be configured without Comfort class,” said the TK spokesperson.
“Current versions of the B777 fleet with Comfort class configuration will also be converted to the new configurations gradually, which will take some time”.
For more information, visit turkishairlines.com
Clement Huang
