Turkish Airlines - a big Yes

I agree, my wife and I had a much longer trip with them recently from Washington Dulles to Bucharest via Istanbul, and then return from Cluj-Napoca, Romania. They seem to fly to just about every airport on Earth! All flights on time, good food, decent legroom for economy. It was interesting to check out some of the Turkish movies and TV with subtitles— they have plenty of the usual US and British stuff too, of course. Having to pay for ALL advance seat assignment is an annoyance, but our fare was quite inexpensive. I paid for seat assignments on the transatlantic legs but not on the shorter European ones, and our random seats for the latter were fine, and together. One interesting thing was that they didn’t bother with an elaborate caste system of different economy boarding groups, everyone just got in line when it was time to board, first come first served. I actually prefer that simplicity, especially compared with something like Delta, with everyone hovering around waiting for “now boarding medium copper medallion passengers with lime twist” or whatever.

I agree. I flew Turkish recently London to Baku business and then Tbilisi to London also business. The service was great, the business class product was fantastic although different aircraft have a differing product according to the age of the aircraft. The food was superb, by far the best airline food I've eaten and the lounge at Istanbul was amongst the best I've encountered albeit very busy.

Since BA have screwed around with their loyal Executive Club members I've decided to change my loyalty and it looks like Turkish Airlines (and the wider Star Alliance network) have won my custom.

For several years I was flying Turkish Air from Houston to Budapest 3 times a year. There were slightly cheaper and faster flights but flying Turkish Air in Economy is "almost" enjoyable so I used them every chance I got.

I would echo JC’s comments. We recently flew round trip San Francisco to Istanbul in business. Long flight, but comfortable, superb service. And the food was great, actually better than many meals we had in Greece and Turkiye. We’ve been flying for a long time so this proved that really good food can be served on an airplane, but most is garbage.

We fly Turkish Airlines pretty regularly these days, coming home from Europe to Seattle in business class, now roughly once a year. It’s a great way to make the long flight comfortable and enjoyable. We now literally go out of our way to come home via Istanbul if we can. Just booked our return flight from Europe next fall Tbilisi - Istanbul - Seattle and looking forward to it.