Aircraft – A330-300.
Flew Turkish Airlines for the first time from ORD-IST-KTM (Chicago-Istanbul-Kathmandu) round trip. I was skeptical about flying this airline as I had heard not so great (not bad either) reviews from two people about service on the plane. They mentioned that the service from ORD-IST was great, but IST-KTM was not good. However, I still booked it, not because it was the cheapest fare, but because it was the shortest flight given my short vacation time in Nepal. Also the IST-KTM sector was about 6 hrs only.
ORD-IST (TK 6) – Flight was good, food on plane was nice, cabin crews were great! However, my and my adjoining seat’s (2-4-2 configuration – was in the window seat) movies would not play. For the 10 hr flight, all I did was look at the flight map and chat with my fellow passenger.
IST-KTM (TK 726) – Flight was delayed about 4.5 hrs. There was no notification in the airport screen until about 50 minutes before scheduled departure. I was talking to my brother in Nepal and he found out about the delay on a website when tracking the flight status. The Ataturk airport was horrible, crowded, dirty bathrooms, food court was crowded and small when compared to the numbers of passengers that go thru the airport. No reason for the delay was provided to any passenger. However, the flight was great and food service was awesome also, contrary to what I had hear before.
KTM-IST (TK 727) – I found out that the IST-KTM flight had consistently been delayed for the past month and this would result in the KTM-IST flight also being delayed, since the same plane was to return to IST as TK 727. I was traveling back to the US with my mother and we knew well in advance that we would miss our connection (TK 5) in Istanbul since we only has a 1.5 hrs transit. The Turkish Airlines office in Kathmandu was unable to provide a good reason for the constant delay for the flight, and told us that we would miss out connection. They said that it was because the airport was no open at 6:30am (scheduled arrival of TK 5 is about 7am Nepal time), so the airline had to delay the arrival. So why was this advertised as a scheduled flight then? The TK 6 departure was scheduled for 8:30am, however, we took off at 12:00 noon.
IST-ORD (TK 5) – So we missed our connection in Istanbul. The airlines provided food vouchers for dinner that night. We were going to have to be in transit for 22 hours now to take the next flight. Since we had a Nepali passport, we were told that Turkey does not give visa for us to be accommodated in land-side hotels. Most passengers who missed the connection were shuttled for free and put up in hotels in the city. There were 4-6 groups of Nepali families that missed connections to Houston, Boston, and Chicago due to the delay of TK 727. The airport had ‘restrooms’ which were lines of beds that people could go in and sleep. Most families used this restroom for the night. I had booked the airport hotel from Nepal, knowing we would miss the connection flight for US$260 for 15 hours. I need a comfortable place for my mom to rest for the night, and therefore, had to bit the bullet and pay the exorbitant price for the air-side hotel. While at the airport, most of the people did not speak much English, and even if they did, they were reluctant and unwilling to help us or provide information. Most people seemed like they hated their jobs and we were a burden to them for being at the airport. We had to go and request food vouchers for breakfast again the following morning. I got to the counter at 5:30am and was told that they start providing vouchers only at 6:00am.
The flight out of Istanbul was on time, flight staff was great and journey was smooth. While waiting to disembark at ORD, the flight crew asked me if I had kids and when I said “yes, two young boys”, he gave me two sets of Turkish Airlines toy kits that consisted on a TK replica airiness made of foam, Turkish Airlines kids’ watch, and TK blow-up planes toys.
My only grievance is about the flight delay and accommodation for missed connections. If I had known all of this prior to booking my ticket, I would have chosen other, cheaper flight, with decent transit time. While trying to get the shortest flights, I ended up spending more money (airport hotel, car reservations cost, etc) and the return flight was lengthened by a whole day.
While I enjoyed the actual flights on Turkish Airlines, the experience at the airport was horrible and I plan on never flying through Istanbul again.
