Questions and Answers

I am thinking of booking a business class ticket on Turkish Airlines from Singapore to UK and vv.

They have a good fare at the moment exact routing will be SIN-IST-BHX and vv.

The first sector is on a 777 with lie flat beds in J class. However I’m bothered by the 2nd sector on a single aisle 737-800 where for 4 hours I’ll be in a “cradle recliner 114cm” [sic]

Will this be a proper business class seat or will it be “intra-Europe” business class on a single aisle plane which usually means 3 standard economy seats with the middle seat blocked?

I’m also bothered by the description “cradle recliner” as a few times I flew Air France Premium Economy long haul in a recliner seat inside a shell and it was the worst airline seat I’ve ever been in for comfort. Impossible to sleep in it and frankly economy is more comfortable than the infamous Air France shell recliner.

[USER=6632]@Kopite[/USER] some of Turkish Airlines’ 738s feature an actual J seat, but there are also some which are intra-Europe J. You may want to look at the seat maps for those IST-BHX legs and compare them to those in [URL=’https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Turkish_Airlines/information.php’]SeatGuru[/URL]. Although recliners are not the most comfortable seats out there, they offer considerably more space and comfort than your typical slimline Y seat and considering that this is a 4hr daytime flight it should be bearable…

FWIW it’s always possible that there’s an aircraft swap, which could mean that you might end up with a better or worse seat than you might have anticipated.

Hi Kopite,

I wouldn’t worry. TK has excellent regional J from IST. Proper padding, comfortable seat, better than any US narrow body First. I often fly IST-BUD, IST-VIE etc. on their 320/321 and 738. A small number of 738s have EU J (blocked middle seat) which isn’t the best. Otherwise, they even have IFE screens on narrowbody and excellent catering.