Our flight attendant was stellar with great anticipation and attention to details. Food was very good, and overall flight, though very long, was really good.
Seats were very tight with poor legroom - and I am average height. During the 12 hour flight, tiny paper cups of drinks we're only offered during the super and breakfast services, with the crew nowhere to be seen in between. One of the bathrooms was out of order, leading to long lines waiting to use the remaining two available to the economy class passengers.
The boarding was not as organized as what I experienced in Houston. We were able to depart on time and landed in Lagos as scheduled.
Flight was delayed. While standing at the gate, a note appeared on the sign saying the gate had changed to a gate far away. No member of the Turkish airlines team got on the microphone to instruct passengers to go to the other gate, to ignore the chiron, etc. Finally, the message disappeared. Eventually, the flight began to board. Very slowly. More slowly than I experience with other airlines. Though Istanbul may just be slow . . . In all other ways, great flight, great entertainment (top notch movies), great service, excellent food, comfortable lie-flat seat, dimmed lights, etc.
The crew checked the immigration laws very quickly for Russian citizenship and confirmed our FVTF for Singapore for 96 hrs. Thank you.
The local Turkish Airlines staff in Helsinki isn’t not aware of immigration laws of Singapore and wanted to refuse even our first boarding and threatened us with deportation on our own from Singapore. We had the next connection to Istanbul and then Singapore. The airline’s online check in system is requesting the visa to download and doesn’t have any option for 96 hrs VFTF passengers. So in general we made the complaint to the airline, as the boarding experience was awful due to unprofessional staff that doesn’t check or want to check the exceptions in the global system.
The connecting flight experience was okay. Flight crew's service were great upon settling. However, it wasn't the same as previous flight. Flight crew were okay - friendly, however, not as accommodating.
I have travelled many times on Turkish, but they always board at least 30-40 minutes past the stated time. If informed properly, passengers can choose to spend more time in the .lounge instead of standing around by the gate waiting to board. The new lounge at DFW was a big disappointment. The aircraft itself was a shock. In the past I have flown this sector with regular business class seating configuration of 1-2-1, The 2-3-2 seating is very disappointing after paying such high prices for tickets. The DFW to Istanbul segment was slightly better, but the Istanbul to Delhi segment was no better than premium economy. I will try to travel more on airlines which give business class passengers more value for their money.
Turkish Airlines inflight crew was very good, however the ground crew was not very helpful. I had booked a wheelchair for my mother from Islamabad and she received the service there, but then there was no chair on arrival at Istanbul. The wheelchair crew said that they declined to take any person without a reservation and declined to help with the arrangement of a reservation. I had to use the airport buggy system to transport my mother who has limited mobility and needs a wheelchair. It was very disappointing and I hope they can provide manual wheelchair access to the public by a need basis, as sometimes there is a mix up or technical fault in the completion of the process, as it was in our case. Also, there can be an emergent need for passengers if they have illnesses like hypertension or diabetes. My mother has both hypertension and diabetes and has residual weakness after a stroke, therefore, she needs assistance. I hope that this text will be taken seriously and the administration makes the necessary changes. Thanks.
After arriving in Istanbul, the transit information on the electronic board showed a tight departure time, and the gate changed in the middle, making it difficult to make it on time.
