Eurostan

[RooFlyer]

They seem to everything well, are a pretty central member of *A and it's true that they fly to more countries than any other airline. The problem is that IST is a long way from Australia so they're not really practical unless doing a decent journey. I guess it helps they've commenced flying into SYD and MEL, but all roads lead to IST.

I am also a fan of TK but have only used them on European regional routes (proper business seating - no eurobusiness) to and from Istanbul. I love visiting Istanbul and I’m happy to have a day or two. Stop over there on any journey.

I’ve been dying to try them ex Australia but reports here was that the service was a bit rough. Not sure if that was a new route thing or a long haul thing.

Obviously ex-CGK was okay?

 

[clifford]

I've flown TK J quite a few times long haul. From CMB and CGK to IST and back quite a few times, and I've found the service to often be quite lackluster, especially from the male flight attendants, who can be rather authoritarian and defenders of the faith (IMO). TK is indeed quite a conflicted airline (and with woeful J accommodation on their 777's).

TK are pretty good (relatively) within Europe, but not so much elsewhere, when compared with the competition.

 

[Scarlett]

Obviously ex-CGK was okay?

I’ve flown them long haul from CGK, SIN and BKK. No issues from me but I’m not a picky or demanding person.

I’ve only used dine on demand once and it was as advertised. Normally on the long hauls from Asia I’ll eat after take off per usual service schedule, then sleep.

On two occasions where I’ve been in J and going to misconnect in IST they’ve been easy to work with. First time in NCE (with the whole family) for planned trip NCE-IST-CGK and the TK ticket desk lady worked the problem and accepted my suggestion of going LH via FRA instead. So we ended up doing NCE-FRA LH short haul eurobusiness, then on the B747-800 for FRA-SIN, then SQ for the short hop to CGK.

The second time was last year in CAI with CAI-IST-BKK planned, but they invol rerouted me with EK via DXB.

 

[Scarlett]

TK1907 IST-ZRH
A330-300 J
TC-LOB
On time

A 2 hour 20 minute flight in Europe on a wide body with proper J seating; what’s not to like.

Boarded on time, PDB of their raspberry drink, cool towels rather than hot?, and breakfast orders taken before push back. With IST being such a large airport the taxi path can feel a bit circuitous but today seemed fairly quick and easy. We departed off one of the parallel runways racing an A321 throughout the takeoff roll. This photo doesn’t do it justice as I was too late thinking to take it, but quite the formation takeoff and the other aircraft looked quite close after rotation.


Transferred some photos off the phone onto my laptop, had breakfast and then enjoyed the different (summer) view of the Alps. This was somewhere south of Salzburg and just doesn’t look right with so little snow.

A little further along the flight I was referencing FR24 again and noticed something interesting ahead.



You can see where TK1907 is on the map above and I was seated on the left hand side so wondered what they’d look like. Underwhelmingly, they looked like ants…


This one is still on the pad.


This was the airborne one looking like it was following the highway.

I think we’d started descent by this point so were probably around 24,000ft.

Approach and landing at ZRH was smooth although we did have to wait on a taxiway for this jet whilst it was finishing its push back.


LCCs don’t always have to have the new jets!

Again no line for immigration, although I did get quizzed about what I was planning to do in Switzerland. Then the Swiss efficiency had bags on the belt in about ten minutes and oversize out one minute after that!

I have a hire car from Alamo, booked through a consolidator named CarFlexi. This is the third time I’ve used them and no issues. A new Renault Clio is fine for just me and it seems to have all the bells and whistles so maybe not a base model? Now time to head to Liechtenstein and see a castle or two.