A Tale of Two Turks: Flight-testing the 777 and A350 Business Class on Turkish Airlines

Life has a funny way of turning situations upside down on a dime. One moment I’m being quoted by the Wall Street Journal about New York City Mayor Eric Adams being indicted for receiving free upgrades to Turkish Airlines’ lackluster business class And then, just days later, I’m booking a last minute flight in that very same cabin.

My last minute booking included a late evening departure from New York JFK on the carrier’s Boeing 777-300ER, returning to Newark a week later on an Airbus A350-900. This gave me an opportunity to experience for the first time Turkish’s outdated and high-density business class seat and compare it against one of the carrier’s newest offerings.

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Out with the old…

As I was flying with a coworker, it would have been nice to snag a seat pair in the 777’s 2-3-2 layout and avoid even having to think about the fact that there is a middle seat in business class. We opted to take the two aisle seats in the center section and hoped the middle seat would go unoccupied. Unfortunately, the flight went out full and we ended up with someone in between us.

On board it was immediately clear the Turkish’s oldest generation seat prioritized bed length while sacrificing any notion of privacy or seat width. For passengers like myself who typically don’t get much sleep on board flights, this was not a beneficial tradeoff. The seat also lacks fine position adjustments, meaning you either get an upright seat or something along the way to a lay flat bed. Passengers just looking for a relaxed position won’t find it.

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I wasn’t exactly excited for the meal service to start at about 2am New York time, but I wanted to get the full Turkish Airlines meal service that typically receives such high marks. Thankfully, the meal service was slightly abbreviated, eschewing the appetizer and dessert carts for a faster, single-pass offering.

That express meal service was still a treat, including a little LED mock-candle to set whatever mood could be mustered at that hour. I found the quality of the meal to be above average, and appreciated the speed of the service.

The generous bed length places the entertainment screen quite far from the seat and the relatively small size compared to modern screens did not help. All interaction with the Panasonic entertainment occurred through the wired handset, an experience I personally do not care for. The handset is always hot despite doing nothing most of the time, and it is difficult to browse such a generous content library this way.

Frustratingly, the remote is locked whenever placed in its mount, despite being in a useful position for quick access to playback and volume controls. Oh, and the screen was also upside down at all times in this mode. The system offers a few channels of live TV through Panasonic’s eXConnect system, but those did not function on this flight. The provided noise canceling headphones were not amazing, but good enough that I didn’t bother using my own.

…In with the new

For the return journey, I arrived at the sprawling Istanbul Airport hours before my flight to explore and see what it has to offer. I was in awe at the size of the terminal building through the check-in process, but quickly made my way through the priority passport control and security screening.

I had heard from friends that the signage at IST was lackluster, and I can confirm that to be the case. After clearing security I spotted no signage for the Turkish Airlines Business lounge and wandered quite a distance before realizing I had made a wrong turn. Annoying, but I had hours to kill.

Walking into the lounge I immediately noticed the disparity in size of the lounge compared to the available space within the terminal building. It wasn’t quite chaotic in the lounge, but the experience was far from relaxing. Seating was scarce, especially if searching for a table at which to enjoy the various food options on offer. Perhaps it is a good thing there is never enough for the number of people waiting, as that reduces the need for seating and table space?

For a facility opened just a few years ago, it is also ridiculous that power or USB ports are practically non-existent anywhere in the lounge. People resorted to plugging into outlets on the floor, creating many tripping hazards. Several large areas, such as the admittedly nice but unnecessary airline museum and TV space, would likely better serve passengers if repurposed to offer additional seating.

I was also able to enjoy a shower after about 45 minutes of waiting. Considering the hulking size of the terminal itself, I left the lounge feeling baffled how the Turkish could have designed its lounge to be so undersized.

On board the Airbus A350 to Newark it was clear that this aircraft was generations ahead of the Boeing 777. The much more modern 1-2-1 pod seating layout was a welcome sight for my solo return trip, ending up in a window seat at the very rear of the cabin.

The seat is certainly more private than the 777, though it is still a far cry from modern suites complete with doors that provide additional privacy. While the 777 seat afforded plenty of bed length, the A350 seat actually felt quite cramped. Indeed, Turkish’s long-haul A350 seat is the same as that used by Singapore Airlines for its regional A350 operations.

At least the A350 offers personal air vents, something that is increasingly rare.

This A350 seat has the same Panasonic entertainment system and tethered remote as the 777. Because the screen is mounted much closer to the seating position, however, I was able to avoid using it. The backlit seat controls are a nice touch for a dark cabin, providing haptic feedback for the capacitive buttons. But why it would be configured to ignore an initial button press only then to activate the backlight requiring another press is beyond me.

Quite uniquely, the seat also contains a lockable storage space, though there was no information on what the combination was in order to use it, and locking it prevents the use of the AC and USB-A power ports. A very strange inclusion (and one Qatar Airways will also include in its Next Gen QSuites when that product eventually takes flight).

This flight offered the full Turkish Airlines dining experience, which itself is a form of entertainment. I was worried that being served last at the back of the cabin would result in my preferred options being unavailable, but thankfully I never ran into this situation.

I was, however, slightly put off by the state of the appetizer cart. Given its barren state and lackluster appearance I had assumed basically everything was gone, but the crew was able to provide me a plate with everything I asked for, and then some. I very much enjoyed the wide choice of appetizers, accompanied with a more modest main course serving.

Turkish Airlines offers 1GB of complimentary Wi-Fi to business class passengers, powered by Panasonic’s Ku-band on the widebody fleet. After just a few minutes of use, my phone somehow chewed through approximately half my data allowance. With just sparing use over the next few hours my data was exhausted and the system automatically fell back to the free messaging plan. With airlines increasingly moving to entirely free Wi-Fi or at least free in business class, this was a bit of a miss.

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I would absolutely choose to fly Turkish business again in the future if the price is right, especially so once the 777s are refurbished with a more modern seat and layout. It’s not the best experience in the world, but there are far, far lesser options out there.