Turkish Airlines Business Class
New York (JFK) – Istanbul (IST)
00:10 (00:54A) – 16:50+1 (16:25A) [8:31 Hours]
Monday 23 September 2019
Boeing 777-300ER (TC-JJF)
Seat: 3A
Cost: THB 89,933 (Promotion Fare)
This is a part of a trip Philadelphia 2019.
Checking In
Since it was a late night departure, we had to check out of the hotel quite early. The traffic from downtown Manhattan to New York JFK was quite disastrous despite being Sunday night. We arrived at Terminal 1 around 9pm and proceeded to check in without any trouble, with our bags tagged to Bangkok.
Lounging Around
Turkish Airline uses the Lufthansa Lounge in New York JFK. The lounge was conveniently located just to the left after security screening.
Coming into the airport early and having spent the whole entire day in New York, we were hoping to catch with some shower before the long flight back to Bangkok. However, the lounge dragon informed us that shower closes at 9:30pm, just 5 minutes ago (!) I was very disappointed by this, and honestly it didn’t really make sense, since there were still a few Star Alliance flights that have not departed with passengers using the lounge.
We had some extra time to spend in the lounge. There were a decent amount of food selection, both hot and cold. They seemed pretty mediocre though, so we didn’t really eat in this lounge.
Boarding & Taking Off
Boarding was called on time and by the time we got to the gate there was a small line for the Business/ Gold. After a small wait we boarded the aircraft in a pretty orderly manner.
This is the presentation of the pre-departure beverage:
Lemon-Mint drink for this flight. It was quite refreshing:
After a few minutes, we started to push back. Since it was very late at night there was basically no queue for departure. We went ahead and took off into the night sky over the Atlantic Ocean.
The Seat
This is the current standard long-haul Turkish Airlines Business Class seat, which is similar to the one found on my outbound flights. It is a comfortable lie-flat seat arranged in a 2-3-2 configuration.
This is the older version of this seat, with the older style entertainment system. It would be the same seat as found on my outbound’s TK59.
The Supper
The menus were provided by the “on-board chefs” before take off. There are two meal services on this flight: dinner and breakfast landing.
This is the menu for today:
Dinner service began with nuts and assorted canapes:
After the canapes, the flight attendant started setting up the table. For this flight, appetizer is served without the trolley service. I choose the smoked salmon and pea soup:
My Steak & Salad. I vaguely remember the steak being a bit hard.
After the main dish was the cheese plate & dessert:
This meal was filling. It was by then very late at night so my appetite wasn’t that high anyways.
The Sleep
The crew came around all the business class passengers to turn down the seat before supper. The seat turn down consists of a thin mattress pad, a pillow cover, and a thicker blanket (in addition to the thin one given during boarding).
I slept quite well on this flight, waking up only shortly before breakfast service.
The Breakfast
Here is the breakfast card which was handed out after boarding and collected after take off:
The breakfast started with fruit plate, cold cuts, orange juice and coffee:
Then the fruit plate was swapped with my hot breakfast which was French Toast:
The breakfast was quite enjoyable. The french toast, however, have a slightly weird texture.
Landing
After the breakfast service, the cabin crew started to prepare the cabin for arrival into the new Istanbul Airport. The view on approach was quite nice, however we did not pass downtown Istanbul this time. We landed a bit early to the far runway and taxi for almost half an hour until we reached the gate. Interestingly, for transit passengers, we did not have to pass through additional security and was let in to the departure floor at the gate. So, we proceeded to the lounge to wait for our connecting flight to Bangkok.
The Experience
Overall, it was another uneventful flight on Turkish Airline’s Boeing 777-300ER. While the lounge experience at New York JFK was less than ideal, the rest of the flight experience was good. This is the third flight on Turkish Airlines for this trip and I started to get used to the service sequences for Turkish Airlines.
Long-Haul Business Class
- Departure & Lounge: 2/5 (Poor Lufthansa Lounge & No Shower Access)
- Aircraft & Seat: 4/5 (good quality seat, but not all aisle access)
- Food: 3.5/5 (Overall, quite okay)
- Sleep: 4.5/5
- Service: 3/5 (not memorable)
- Entertainment: 4.5/5 (very good selection)
- Arrival & Time: 5/5
Total: 26.5/35 (75%) C
Life Well Traveled 