Turkish Airlines is one of my favorite airline brands, and also offers one of the best business class experiences in the world. That’s despite the fact that Turkish doesn’t have a particularly good business class hard product, at least not with any consistency.
Fortunately that’s expected to change, though at a very slow pace. In 2024, the airline unveiled an all-new business class product, which was supposed to be introduced in 2025. That timeline has come and gone, so the latest is that the airline is promising this product will launch in the coming months, before the end of the year…
In this post:
Basics of Turkish Airlines’ new Crystal business class suite
Turkish Airlines is introducing a new business class, branded as “Crystal.” Below is a promotional video the airline put out about the new seat back in July 2024, which I must say is very well done.
Turkish Airlines’ new business class features direct aisle access and privacy doors at all seats. The cabin is in a 1-2-1 configuration, and is in a staggered layout. In the center section, every other row of seats has “honeymoon” suites, for those who want to sit close to one another.
There’s great attention to detail with the cabin finishes, like 22″ high definitional entertainment monitors, wireless charging, and the use of real marble (which… seems a bit excessive?).
Interestingly, Turkish Airlines is manufacturing this seat in-house, so the airline isn’t working with one of the major seating manufacturers, as I understand it. This does, however, look fairly similar to the Safran Unity seat, which is proving to be a popular “next generation” business class seat. You’ll find this staggered product on Japan Airlines’ Airbus A350-1000s, Riyadh Air’s Boeing 787-9s, etc. This is also the seat that Qantas will offer on its Airbus A350-1000s.
Currently the product that’s most similar to this at Turkish Airlines is the carrier’s A350-900 business class, for jets that were initially intended for Aeroflot. These feature business class seats in a 1-2-1 configuration with doors and good tech. That’s the Collins Aerospace Horizon seat, which is also an excellent product.
Turkish Airlines plans new business class for 777s & A350s
So, when should we expect Turkish Airlines’ new business class to debut? The expectation is that this will be offered on newly delivered planes as of November 2026, while it’ll be retrofitted on existing aircraft as of some point in 2027 or 2028.
It’s really disappointing how much the retrofit project has been delayed, since the initial plan was to retrofit all existing Boeing 777-300ERs with these seats, starting in 2025. But that timeline has been pushed back by years. The airline has 33 of these aircraft in its fleet, and they’re an average of around 11 years old, so they still have quite a bit of life left in them.
This new product is long overdue for 777s, which currently have a 2-3-2 layout in business class. When the 777s are reconfigured, the expectation is that the business class cabin will be reduced in size from 49 seats to 44 seats. So it’ll still be a good size, but not quite as big.
However, due to those delays, the plan is more immediately for this product to be installed on newly delivered Airbus A350s that are delivered as of November 2026. This will initially include A350-900s, and eventually A350-1000s, once delivered.
There are no firm plans to retrofit this product on existing Boeing 787-9s or Airbus A350-900s, as those planes already feature direct aisle access from all business class seats.
Bottom line
Turkish Airlines will be introducing its new Crystal business class product. The new product will be in a 1-2-1 configuration, with direct aisle access and privacy doors at each seat. It should really take the Turkish business class experience to the next level.
Unfortunately entry into service for this product has been majorly delayed. This is now expected to be introduced on newly delivered Airbus A350s as of November 2026, and retrofitted on existing Boeing 777s as of 2027 or 2028. That’s a far cry from the initial timeline of retrofits starting in 2025. Either way, it sounds like we’re not too far off from the first of these planes entering service.
What do you make of Turkish Airlines’ new business class seats?
Great, can't wait to try this. All my flights with Turkish are on old configurations, which are sub-par.
About that "one of the best business class experience in the world"... On planes with electrochromic windows Turkish FAs set them to the darkest setting on daytime flights to the US immediately after takeoff and keep them dark the whole flights, locking out individual controls. Annoys the hell out of me. JAL FAs make the windows dark, but don't lock the controls.
Flew long-haul on TK last week. Overall experience was excellent, except one small niggle with the "honeymoon" seats on our 787-9. Stelia seats?
Was difficult to converse back and forth due to the fixed "P" shaped wall that protruded out and blocked our line of sight. That wall also reduced the inside armrest width on the right seat. I'm no engineer, but it's like they put two singles together, instead of a true open "honeymoon"...
Flew long-haul on TK last week. Overall experience was excellent, except one small niggle with the "honeymoon" seats on our 787-9. Stelia seats?
Was difficult to converse back and forth due to the fixed "P" shaped wall that protruded out and blocked our line of sight. That wall also reduced the inside armrest width on the right seat. I'm no engineer, but it's like they put two singles together, instead of a true open "honeymoon" design?
The video appears to show a more open "honeymoon" pair with the new seats which would be a good improvement.
Stelia Opal to be exact.
Singapore's Regional Business Class on the 78X and select A359s.
Yes, that is just a lazy design. All they have is a single seat with a mirror image. Would've been so much better to have a version with much smaller privacy partition for the honeymoon and the true window seats. As it is now, true window seats have lots of wasted space between the wall and the useless partition that does nothing but block the view out.
They will manufacturing the seat in-house? Good luck with certification.
I'm often really hard on Turkey given Erdogan's authoritarianism and their refusal to recognize the Armenian and Greek genocides—all relevant since the state owns a controlling stake in this carrier—but Turkish Airlines is doing the right thing here, finally. As Ben notes, their 777 with 2-3-2 business class is outdated (just like many of Emirates' 777s *cough*). Hope they actually get this cabin upgrade done in the next year or so. We'll see... In the...
I'm often really hard on Turkey given Erdogan's authoritarianism and their refusal to recognize the Armenian and Greek genocides—all relevant since the state owns a controlling stake in this carrier—but Turkish Airlines is doing the right thing here, finally. As Ben notes, their 777 with 2-3-2 business class is outdated (just like many of Emirates' 777s *cough*). Hope they actually get this cabin upgrade done in the next year or so. We'll see... In the meantime, at least the 'new' IST is nice.
Yep, really great logic judging a world class airline and calling out their leader’s “authoritarianism” when you have one of its worst examples here at home— whom also refused to recognize the genocide less taking place right now in Gaza. The hypocrisy and the alternative reality some of you guys live in is unreal.
Jk, that's quite the 'whataboutism' sandwich we got here. I'll just say, people can and should criticize their home government's policies and also acknowledge issues elsewhere. Just like, folks on a travel blog can and should critique business class seats and cabin upgrades...
22" tellys in Business Class seems small nowadays. I would've expected 27".
Wouldn't marble add extra weight?
As the seats are being manufactured in-house, it's possible they just follow a template on a particular seat along with the associated manufacturer and go from there. And that's the beauty of a bespoke product, you can't really tell who it's from. Cathay, ANA, Qatar's Q-Suites, Singapore look nothing like the standard product.
It is made of corian, according to this article
https://runwaygirlnetwork.com/2024/07/tcis-crystal-biz-suite-turkish-airlines/