San Franciso — Istanbul Turkish Airlines TK80 Flight Report
I booked Turkish Airlines for my flight to a conference in Singapore to avoid the boring 14hr United nightmare, and of course, to have a chance to see Istanbul once again. In fact, I purposely booked long layovers on both my inbound and outbound flights, so Istanbul twice more. The trip happened at a difficult time of my career. I made the poster overnight for a conference and started the trip with jet leg before even leaving my house.
Summer 2023 was an eventful time in Turkey. First of all, the UEFA Champions League was going to take place in Istanbul; the second event was about a young football player who went on to dominate and shape Turkish politics for more than 2 decades. Turkish president Racep Tayip Erdogan was faced with the biggest political challenge in his 20 years in power — the presidential election had entered a runoff for the first time in Turkish history. His main rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu led in most of the polls before the first round of election, but Erdogan still managed to secure a lead. Although he didn’t win the election one-round by getting more than 50% of the votes, the situation was looking quite good to him. Either way, this day in the 100th anniversary of the Turkish republic would be a day for history to remember, and I was fortunate to be there to witness.
Before my trip, Wiew joked with me multiple times about the possibility the situation on ground would go out of control, in which case my flight would be diverted to Azerbaijan, or I had to escape the country via the land border to Greece etc….Honestly if I hadn’t been heading to a conference but merely traveled for leisure, I would have looked forward to such scenarios.
After the long line to check in, I initially planned to go to the Air France lounge, only to realize the terminals were not connected airside in SFO. The terminal I was at only had one priority pass-cooperating restaurant for me to have a free meal.
After finishing my fish and chips (I didn’t have appetite for the chips part, so asked them not to bring any,) there was still some time to walk around the terminal. First time seeing SFO’s outdoor terrace.
Second time taking Turkish Airline’s long haul flight. Turkish Airline featured pretty nice hardware including the entertainment system, meals and the amenity kit. However its quality of service hardly matches its hardware. I’ve read multiple horrible stories online about how Turkish Airlines’ flight attendants mistreat their passengers.
When it’s my turn to board, the ground staff suddenly announced that the overhead cabins had been full, so everyone boarding from now had to have their carry-on luggage checked here at the gate. I personally didn’t have any carry-on luggage (only having a backpack as usual,) but also felt such practice was not usual for a high-end legacy carrier.
Turkish Airlines’ Boeing-777–300ER had a 3–3–3 layout. Lucky enough, the seat next to me was empty, so I got more space to enjoy on this 11hr long-haul flight. We waited in flight for around half an hour before take-off due to some technical issues.
As a major sponsor of the UEFA Champions League, Turkish Airlines advertised the game in its in-flight entertainment, and evening had the meal menu featuring UEFA Istanbul 23's logo and color scheme.
The amenity kit of Turkish Airlines was top-notch that I still keep to this day. Its meal service was also relatively good among airlines nowadays — fish and smashed potatoes, bread, Turkish delight, and whatever sour sauce there on the top-left, but I am personally not a big fan of Turkish cuisine.
Turkish airlines’ in-flight entertainment provided movies and shows from all over the world — Turkish, Hollywood, European, Asian, Indian….etc. I wanted to watch some Turkish films, but none of which seemed interesting enough. At the end I watched the American horror movie “Fall”, about two girls being stuck on the top of a TV tower in desert for days. I never enjoyed horror movies, and this one felt particularly close to reality (instead those with ghosts or zombies), which made me gasp several times. So I had to collect myself a bit by playing stupid games.
I was able to get a little bit of sleep after the movie. The second meal featured pancakes with jam and canned fruit. When the cabin crew was preparing for landing, a flight attendant rudely pull of my phone charger from the screen without even saying a word. I was too shocked to even react to such scenario — I knew the airline was not famous for good service, but this was a little bit unacceptable.
When we landed in Istanbul, Erdogan had claimed victory for another 4 years of presidency. Entering Turkey with the multi-entry evisa I applied back in January, I gave Istanbul’s newly constructed airport metro a try. A long sky-bridge walk led to the metro station.
Istanbul is a strong hold for the opposition party. In fact the mayor of the city, Ekrem Imamoglu, is Erdogan’s formidable adversary. Let’s go to downtown quickly to see how the post-election situation would unfold.
