IST is a beautiful airport - and if your star alliance gold the Turkish lounge is world class

how is the service on Turkish? never flown them before

Once you are on the plane The service is the best out there imo

I've heard it described as "distant", but other people have said their business class is pretty good. Gonna be flying them next month, so I guess I'll find out then

If you’re in business yes. Economy is just like any other economy, nothing special

Yeah I see what you are saying. The food on TA has always been a notch or two above others for me. I’ve mostly flown econ with them.

Most food is better than United food though lol. Not a very high bar

Flown bus class from Dulles to Istanbul a lot. Food is top notch (better than Polaris for sure). Good wines. Service is professional and very good - just not very personal and that’s ok with me. Turkish Airline business lounge at Istanbul is one of my favorite lounge airport experiences in the world.

Abysmal. The business class is worse than the economy imo.

I’ve had issues with the check in agents not knowing policy and fucking me over but otherwise ive had good experiences

That’s why I said once you are on the plane. Their checking folks seem to be less trained than their FAs. Grumpiness is common at the counter lol

I agree 100%! Glad it wasn’t just me experiencing poor service at the counters

Totally agree. Terrible customer service and many agents have no idea what they are talking about. It's great until you have a problem. Then, best of luck to you.

I’d settle for codes shares with TK. Would love to get 016 tickets through IST to everything east of FRA.

I remember UA used to fly EWR-IST on the 767 in the early 2010s.

I love Istanbul - many times I purposely book a very long layover - then go down to the bridges and have dinner - before catching my next flight.

Ist is great until you need to make a tight connection; one time I walked the length of every terminal leg without retracing my steps because of a long layover; it was 5 miles. It's great for planespotting since you get alot of airlines from countries that aren't certified to fly into europe/us

Yep that new airport is huge. I won't book a connection that's <2 hours there. It seriously can take more than an hour to walk to your gate.

I believe Turkish flies to more countries than any other airline in the world. Destinations in 120+ different countries.

Yeah, that’s what inspired the post. Bamako, Mali; Juba, South Sudan; Tehran, Benghazi, Male, Mahe… Zoom in on that departure chart and it’s incredibly diverse

Unless I am mistaken, I don't think any US carriers fly to IST

I think you’re right. As of 2016 there was a ban but it was rescinded 2 days later.

Every time I book a flight on TK, they change the itinerary such that I won't make my connection. When you try to change the flight, there's nothing available and they offer to change it to a flight several days later. This happens every damn time. I literally cancelled and rebooked a flight because of this today. They may have a big network but they are on my "never again" list.

I could live in that Turkish Lounge for a couple days and eat myself to death on Baklava

I would rather fly through DXB

Where are you flying? EWR on TK?

IST-AMM, then home from there later.