Review: Turkish Airlines A319 Business Class

Tiffany's menu said prawns but the pic shows beef?

@Aaron
I think that’s not beef but stuffed eggplant.

Overall, looks like an amazing short-haul flight! Thanks for the nice trip report @Lucky.

And the new terminal doesn’t have sufficient gates and they need to use buses

It’s also very badly located , prone to low visibility and bird breeding grounds

What's that dish of beef/lamb in red sauce? Don't see it listed on either of the menus.

Interesting that they use normal buses for regional flights.. For domestic flights they got the special business class busses when boarding from the lounge.

@ Aaron @ tobieats @ Elijah -- There were prawns brought on the main tray, and then like ten minutes later the flight attendant brought the beef stew/ratatouille. As Ben noted, when you order a special meal you often don't really know what you're eating. 😉

Thanks for sharing the info on the GF meal service. I have thought about taking the same flight from my home base in ATL but wasn’t sure how well Turkish handles GF food service.

On departure IST is almost underneath the main Europe - Gulf path and so climb outs from the new airport can be slow which may be what happened here. I just depends how many A380s are overhead!

The TK A319s are some of the oldest planes in the fleet. There was a plan to fit them with new business class seats but it seems to have been shelved which is a pity because they do use them on some longer routes eg IST-BIO but they are never on trunk routes. There are even a few A321s that still have euro-business seating and at times on trunk routes eg LHR, FRA, CDG but you have to be really unlucky to get one.

Yeah, they applaud. The most inappropriate use of applause I've run into was on the old Cyprus Airways LCA-FCO about 20 yesterday ago on an A320. GA on short final (preceding flight didn't vacate in time for clearance to be issued. File under "European Problems"). Pretty roughly handled; compressor stall outta #1. Basically it felt like a giant baseball bat hit the left wing while flames shoot out the front of the engine.

Applause.

Some cultural behaviors are inexplicable.

Enjoy Romania. Cluj still has that hip, undiscovered vibe, but it won't for long.

Out of curiosity I checked how much this flight costs in real money. For coach, it's $199 round trip in November. For business class, it's $545.

"There were prawns brought on the main tray"

True, but those were already listed on the menu for the appetizer. Then again, prawns for appetizer and main course would have been a bit much, so I guess that was a fortunate mistake for you.

I'm not sure if the hold pattern had to do with the air space around IST or more wit the fact that TK hasn't updated all their flight schedules despite having a new airport to play with. As a result, instead of waiting 45 minutes in the queue to reach the runway, you instantly take off, causing panic as you might arrive so much ahead of schedule that neither the Romanian ATC nor Cluj airport are ready for you. As such, you just fly an extra round to kill the time. The good news is that you both departed and landed on time, or actually still way ahead of schedule.

I'm flying TK soon again on a route that hasn't changed schedule since the airport swap. It's still at 4 hours, despite the actual flying time being just 3 hours (and 5 minutes or so). My destination is significantly bigger than Cluj, so I'll see if we either end up with a hold pattern, depart way too late or arrive an hour early.

And about the applauding... I guess that's a former Warsaw Pact-thing. Given the reliability of the Antonovs and Tupolevs, they might have a point, you know. 😀

Our experience was similar to yours when we flew into Kiev last fall. Not super great but definitely ahead of the pack.

Our return started with a Business Class flight on Ukrainian International into Frankfurt. So if you want a contrast here it is . Definitely sub par.

Does anyone know if TK sells business class upgrades from economy on their short haul European flights? They routinely do it for flights from the US.

Same

Looks like another great flight, and impressive meal for a 70 minute flight.

Thanks for sharing!

I’m going to love it if that passenger that showed up at the accomodation was a gypsy.

As someone who has been very critical of Ben in the past, I will give him a lot of credit. He has been churning out reviews (and quality ones) faster than I change my socks!

Butter is gluten free, so I don’t know why they offer margarine instead.

I’m flying TK from Boston to Istanbul to Amman in the spring, unfortunately in economy. I hope it is decent.

That prawn with tomato sauce and buttered rice has been on the J class menu for more than a year. How much cheap shrimp did TK buy?

Both your long haul flight and your short haul flight used remote gates at this brand new airport. I just don't get it.

Those pictures appear to be of main cabin seats, not business. The article mentions that the business class seats were two across, but all of these were three across and certainly look like standard coach seating.

@Jonathan, seats in most intra-European class are indeed two across, but that is achieved simply by blocking off the middle seat—in this case with a tray offering some storage for drinks and small items. The hard product itself is essentially the same as in the main cabin, but you don’t have to deal with a passenger in the middle.