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Travel to Istanbul

Dear Folks: This has been asked before but please update me on how you feel about Turkish Airlines going to the Istanbul tour. Any problems, any praises, how did you travel? I normally have Delta but they switch you off in Amsterdam for another 3 hour flight after an overnight flight. Any recommendations? Thank You

Posted by
967 posts

I'm loyal to Delta because I'm in Atlanta and all my perks are with them, but took TA to Istanbul because it was a direct flight leaving late in the evening. We did buy ahead and probably pay too much to get extra legroom seats, but I was happy enough with the flight. It was also pretty full in October, so maybe good that we bought months ahead.

Posted by
682 posts

I am a big Turkish Airlines fan, even though I live in Atlanta and should be loyal to Delta. Given a choice between Delta and Turkish, I always choose Turkish.

The food and onboard service are great, and they have a generous baggage allowance. Everyone seems to understand that Turkish enforces baggage and behavior rules, and so one doesn't see the "rules don't apply to me" attitude among passengers, which drives me completely nuts every time I fly Delta. People tend not to carry insane amounts of baggage on board and so there is always plenty of overhead space, and I have never had anyone steal my seat on Turkish. Also, I have never seen anyone refuse to comply with Covid rules.

Most importantly, though, Turkish has been very good about unexpected flight changes. They were awesome about arranging another flight for us when we got stuck in the great Covid shutdown of March 2020. When I was flying home from Antalya in May, they noticed when I checked in that my flight to Istanbul was delayed and that I would likely miss the connection to Atlanta. They automatically rebooked me on an another flight, and I made my connection with no problem.

Having said that, the new Boeing planes that they are using on the Atlanta to Istanbul route are a lot more cramped than the Airbus planes that they used to use. It used to be that regular economy on Turkish was more like premium economy on Delta. That's not true anymore. Also, the past several flights I have made have been 100% full.

Posted by
21 posts

I am taking the tour in October and since I live in Louisville I would have to connect to a city with TA connections such as Atlanta, NY others.

Posted by
682 posts

The timing from Atlanta -- leaving shortly after 10pm and arriving in Istanbul the next afternoon -- is fairly painless as far as overnight flights go. I get on the plane, eat dinner, go to sleep, and wake up when they turn the cabin lights on. We are usually somewhere over Germany or the Balkans by the time I wake up.