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Yesterday, my wife and I landed in Seattle (SEA). That wouldn't typically be worth sharing, but it marked the halfway point for our goal to fly Turkish Airlines to six continents to earn two million miles.
In the last three weeks, we've flown over 20,000 miles in Turkish Airlines economy — from Europe to South America, back to Europe, and now to North America. That leaves three more continents to go: Asia, Africa, and “Oceania” (Australia). And we are set to check off all three of them by mid-August.
Unfortunately, our Turkish Airlines flights haven't been all smooth sailing so far. Here's the good, the bad, and the ugly of our first six Turkish Airlines economy flights.
The Good
Amenity kits and menus in economy
One of the nicer touches of Turkish Airlines' economy product is that flight attendants hand out menus and amenity kits. Rather than stocking these at the seats (and risk them being scooped up), flight attendants hand them out shortly after takeoff.
The amenity kit is pleasantly comprehensive, containing an eye mask, slippers, socks, a toothbrush, and earplugs. The bi-fold menu covers the meal and drink choices in both English and Turkish — a nice way to see what you're getting served. And speaking of meals…
Onboard food
Ok, so it's still airline food. But the Turkish Airlines catering on our flights so far has far exceeded expectations. Rather than cheap slop, each meal has been surprisingly tasty and substantial. A warm main dish (typically two choices) is served with a fresh salad, a side, a warm bread roll, and dessert. Each dish is served in a reusable dish along with metal silverware.
Perhaps most surprising is that Turkish Airlines has served meals even on short-haul flights — even including our 1.5-hour flights between Istanbul (IST) and Athens (ATH). Turkish Airlines even served meals on a short flight departing at 3:55 am!
Substantial recline
Let's be honest: I've gotten pretty spoiled from flying lots of business- and first-class products. Katie and I almost always fly in a premium cabin on intercontinental flights. So, I was really concerned about getting sleep on these first three 11+ hour flights. Thankfully (in regards to sleep), Turkish Airlines economy seats recline a substantial way — approaching what you might expect from premium economy seats.
However, there are some bad aspects of substantial recline…
The Bad
29″ pitch
On its newest Airbus A350 aircraft, Turkish Airlines opted to arrange seats with just 29 inches of pitch. That's Spirit Airlines-level of pitch. Add in the thickness of the seats — which is a good thing for these long-haul flights — and each passenger doesn't have much room to exist.
A tight space wouldn't be awful for a short flight, but our long-haul Turkish Airlines flights have been between 11 and 14 hours each. That makes for a rough flight, particularly if the passenger in front of you utilizes their recline — which the passengers in front of me did on two of three flights.
Here's a photo of me trying to write this article while on our flight from Istanbul (IST) to Seattle (SEA):
Broken seats
Complicating the bad pitch is the fact that Turkish Airlines' economy seats don't remain in place under pressure. Seats can easily be manipulated backward or forward, up to a couple of inches. That's really bad news when the person in front of you throws his weight into the back of his seat as you have a phone or laptop nearby — or when the passenger behind you pulls your seatback as support to stand up. And unfortunately, both of those were frequent occurrences on two of our three flights so far.
Broken in-flight entertainment system
On my second flight, my in-flight entertainment system didn't work properly the entire flight. Whenever I tried to load any content — from the tail camera to a TV episode, the multiple advertisements would play just fine. However, I'd get a black screen when the content was supposed to play. When I pointed this out to a flight attendant, she said she would reset my system — but the system never ended up working properly. Thankfully, I'd downloaded plenty of content for this flight.
Aggressive censorship of content
Some sort of censorship is understandable — even desirable — on flights. However, Turkish Airlines' censorship went well beyond the normal removal of nudity or even profanity. One example of it perhaps going too far: In Brooklyn Nine-Nine, the word “gay” is bleeped — even in non-sexual and non-derogatory ways. Even the framed newspaper headline announcing Captain Holt's appointment as the first “openly gay” captain is blurred.
But the censorship went further than even that. Throughout the Brooklyn Nine-Nine pilot, the word “ham” is bleeped — which could lead to rather hilarious assumptions if you didn't know what they were discussing.
No power outlets
Another frustration for those trying to get work done in Turkish Airlines economy is the lack of standard power outlets. Each seatback monitor features a USB-A and USB-C outlet, providing sufficient charging capacity for phones. However, seats don't have a universal power outlet for charging larger devices like laptops. (To be sure, I tried powering my laptop using the USB-C outlet, but the laptop noted that the outlet provided too little power.)
So, if you plan to work on a laptop during a long Turkish Airlines flight, make sure to board with your battery fully charged and enable all of your power-saving settings.
The Ugly
Inconsiderate passengers
When flying in economy, much of your experience isn't determined by the flight attendants or even the airline — but by those around you. And we've found our fellow Turkish Airlines passengers to be severely lacking in flying etiquette.
On our first (and longest) long-haul flight from Istanbul (IST) to Sao Paulo (GRU), a mother and toddler took the other two seats in my row (instead of their assigned seats). While the little girl started off playful and cute, she developed a kicking habit about an hour into the flight — and it persisted for the entire flight.
During the meal service, I had to hold my drink the entire time as she was constantly kicking my tray table enough to spill a drink. Her mother periodically put up a halfhearted attempt to stop her, but she seemed more relieved that it was me being kicked instead of her. Throughout the night, I was awoken several times by the restless toddler kicking me in the side.
And then there's the seatback situation. With the 29-inch pitch and substantial recline, there's almost no space to do anything on your tray table when the passenger in front of you is reclined — including eating a meal. Yet, on two of three flights, the passenger in front of me reclined the entire flight — even if that meant that they had to lean forward to eat their meals.
Perhaps the most obnoxious behavior from my flights so far has been the inability of the passengers behind me to stand up without pulling the seat in front of them. Because the seats give substantially, this would cause me to be pulled backward several inches and then slingshot forward when they release. On my third flight, the passenger behind me didn't even seem to care when he grabbed my head instead of the seatback. That made for a very rude awakening.
Cold meal because flight attendants ate first
On our first flight, we didn't get meal service for the first couple of hours. We didn't have any turbulence or clear issues, but I assumed that the flight attendants were waiting for some reason. Then I headed back to the rear galley lavatory (where I found the next gripe). There, I found all of the flight attendants happily chatting as they ate from the warmed meals.
Finally, after finishing their meals, the flight attendants began serving meals to passengers. Although the menu listed two options, flight attendants didn't ask any passengers for their preference. Instead, they seemed to just serve whatever they had on hand. By this point, the meal was barely lukewarm.
No water or soap in the lavatories for an entire flight
Another abysmal experience so far involved the lavatory situation on our first flight. When I went to the lavatory a bit after takeoff, I found that there was already no soap available. After reporting it to a flight attendant (who shrugged), I checked another lavatory. Not only did that lavatory not have soap, but it didn't have any running water either. Now quite curious about the situation, I checked the third lavatory to find that it also didn't have any soap (but at least it had running water).
The fact that this was just after departure makes it clear that the airline didn't properly service the lavatories before the flight — rather than the airline simply running out mid-flight.
But that's not the end of the lavatory woes…
FAs claiming an entire lavatory for themselves
Lines for lavatories seem inevitable — particularly in economy. However, the situation on our first flight was made worse by the flight attendants claiming one lavatory entirely for themselves. Multiple times while trying to get blood flowing during the long flight (and get a temporary retrieve from the kicking toddler), I watched a flight attendant exit a bathroom and use the outside latch to lock the door behind them.
This wasn't during turbulence or just before landing. So, it seemed clear that the flight attendants were simply claiming this bathroom as their own, leaving even fewer bathrooms for economy passengers.
Final Thoughts
I've flown over half a million miles in economy over the first eight years as a full-time digital nomad. So, I thought I knew what I was getting myself into with these flights. But these past 20,000 miles in Turkish Airlines economy have been particularly challenging in several ways. Especially for an airline that boasts about the quality of its economy product, I'm disappointed to find ultra-low-cost-carrier levels of seat pitch, no standard power outlets, and glaring issues like the lack of soap and even water in lavatories.
With that said, each long-haul Turkish Airlines flight has gotten a bit easier as my wife and I have learned what to expect. We make sure to have snacks on-hand in case meal service is delayed, board with full laptop batteries, and download a few hours of content — whether the IFE system doesn't work or we simply can't view it because the seat in front of us is reclined so far.
Would I recommend Turkish Airlines economy? Not based on our experience so far. But we're hoping that our next seven flights are easier than our first six!
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