Turkish Air?
 

We will be traveling from Chicago to Istanbul and back in October. Turkish Air operates the only nonstop flights between Chicago and Istanbul, and the departure times are well suited for our travel.

This would be our first travel on Turkish Air, so I've been looking at reviews of the airline -- and they're pretty awful. I infer that the flight experience itself is fine, but that customer service is abysmal, especially in emergencies or non-standard situations. However, they do get a 75% approval rating on TripAdvisor, but there are no reviews there, just the ratings.

From those with experience on Turkish Air -- should we be concerned? Especially concerned enough to consider less convenient flights (those with one or two stops, less attractive departure times, etc.)?

Thanks very much.

I flew there about 7-8 years ago and biz class was fine, but economy looked shabby. Looks like they're flying an A330 from ORD, which should be pretty good. As to quality...

Try looking at youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuWta_25aAI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7ISL-crsZU

Reviews. Note that most are for biz class.

http://www.airlinequality.com/Forum/turkish.htm

http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews76337.html

Here is my reply to an earlier post complaining about a "horrible experience" with Turkish:

<i>"I'm sorry you had such a difficult experience. I have flown with Turkish many times in Europe and the Middle East and have always had very good flights and service. That being said, I never had occasion to try making the changes you wanted.

However, I think you will find, if you investigate further, that you wouldn't have been able to make those changes with any other airline either, unless you purchased fully refundable/changeable tickets initially.

And most airlines also will cancel the rest of the itinerary if you are a no-show for one leg. I believe that's pretty standard throughout the industry."</i>

If you want to read the whole thread, here is a link: http://www.fodors.com/community/air-...experience.cfm

As I said above, I have had a number of experiences using Turkish, the most recent being several years ago from Istanbul to Tehran. In each case I have flown business class, I never check luggage, and none were from the US. And in each case the flights were comfortable, service was excellent and I had no complaints.

By the way, I'm a Purdue grad also. And I love Turkey. Sounds like you'll have a wonderful trip!

We flew two Turkish air flights while in turkey and we happy with them. My daughter had an extra international flight from Sweden to Istanbul to Bangkok and had no complaints w those either.
.

Thanks very much. I trust the Fodorites and your comments are reassuring!

julia1, I went to the thread and I had read that very same complaint in another forum (Yelp, maybe?), but I had missed it here. We're doing the apparently standard Istanbul-Cappadocia-Ephesus in two weeks, and we're really looking forward to it. Go Boilers!

Hi, you can also find some travelers' reports about their trip with turkish airlines on this website:
http://www.airlikes.com/turkish-airlines-reviews