Joseph Chen

Beyond all odds, we made it to the business cabin on Turkish. We weren’t supposed to, but a stroke of luck made it fruition. Originally, they were out of business class seats. There were technically 2 seats unbooked, but that’s because they were inoperable, thus unfit and unavailable for passenger use. Somehow, the gate agents didn’t see those indicators and gave us boarding passes for them without letting us know about those issues.

When we got onboard, the in-flight crew was confused regarding the gate agents hadn’t let us know about the issues when issuing the tickets. I mentioned perhaps it’s because we’re non-revenue standby (thus second-class citizens haha), but they said it doesn’t matter and that we had the right to know. At this point, I was worried we were out of these seats, but they somehow made it work. I sat in 8A with an inoperable storage nook, which was a very minor issue for me. I get why they wouldn’t want a revenue customer experiencing that though. Gabi, originally in a seat with a broken table, ended up moving to a fully-functional seat in 1A that someone ended up not making. How fortunate for us, and I do hope the missing passenger ended up making his way to where he needed.

But, every non-revenue passenger knows (or will come to know) one vital rule: the job ain’t done until you’re in the air. You can definitely get pulled off the plane for any reason: load and balance issues, overbooking issues and last-minute revenue passengers, recently-discovered inoperable seats, and many more. So, it’s always wise to not celebrate too early. However, once we pushed back, I sighed with relief and satisfaction. We took off soundly and started making our way back to Chicago.

Now, let’s dive to the review:

cabin & seat

this felt like your typical modern business cabin—a 1-2-1 layout with individual, privatized seats. comparable to United Polaris I’d say, although I think Turkish does it just slightly better with their materials. They used Alcantara padding in the interior trimming of the seats, which is suede-like material typically used in fancy schmancy cars. overall, a great and solid hard product.

service & crew

this was my first time flying non-rev business on a different airline, so i felt a bit out of place and anxious. however, the crew were very professional and well-spoken, whereas LOT Polish’s (in a future review) were very warm. both styles are great in their own ways.

food & beverage

oh my goodness. gabi and i have never been so enthralled and over the moon with our flying experience until this one. the menu was so frickin' long and had so much variety.

drinks: the juices, oh, were so delicious. they tasted like they squeezed it straight in the galley, which i really doubt, but the taste had me super super second-guessing. gabi had a smoothie, and she said it was “so delicious, tasted like blended fresh, still had the pulpiness of my fruits in it, super fresh and sweet but not in a sugary way.” i also had an iced latte with oat milk, and it was SUCH a solid iced latte (like 6/10) ON A PLANE! CRAZY! gabi downed gallons of turkish tea she said, and they were great as they usually are. other options on the table were mocktails, detox drinks, 5 different wellness tea, homemade lemonade, and more! bunch of wine options, but i haven’t acquired that taste just yet.

food: the food, though, was also top-tier. a literal CHEF with a chef hat and robes pushed a silver cart down the aisle and served me SEATSIDE. SO COOL. i loved the “creamy turmeric cauliflower soup” that was ladled to me right then and there, and there were such an assortment of other appetizers like roast beef roll, salmon gravlax, traditional Turkish cheese “börek”, and more. but what broke me was the “Braised lamb shank with Mediterranean vegtables, celeriac mousseline, thyme jus, Chimichurri sauce” because i’m not much a lamb guy, but that was easily top 3, if not 1, lamb dishes i’ve ever had. it was fall-apart tender (my bone literally fell apart from the meat, it was shocking) and so delicious. the sauces accentuated the lamb so much too!!! so well-plated as well. goodness, i was in such disbelief. for dessert, i had some lovely Turkish ice cream and fresh fruit. the fresh fruit, again, was SO FRESH and SO GOOD. i had like 4 or 5 cups of fresh fruit. it was too too good. how do i say this? SO SO SO GOOD. for breakfast, i also had yogurt with fresh fruits and homemade granola as well as pancakes with caramelized apples. also absolutely delicious i tell you. i initially slept past breakfast, but they offered it to me when i woke up bless up thank you Turkish.

oh also, Turkish Airlines has been bragging about having the oldest bread onboard from 12,000 years ago. i was hyped for it as i love bread. ngl, it was solid bread but quite grainy (i liked it just fine, but gabi was underwhelmed LOL)

ife, amenities, and others

ife was great and modern. large screen and great interface. lots of movies/shows to watch, and i especially loved the access to various cameras on the exterior of the aircraft. that was a super cool feature. amenities—nothing special. 1GB of data was provided as business-class passengers. it was slow and emptied quickly, which i expected as much haha. we are, after all, flying around the globe.

sleep & in-flight experience

after dining, the crew offered to make our beds while we changed into the provided pjs in the bathroom. came back to a thin mattress pad, nice lil pillow, and a plush blanket. slept very well :)

overall

9.5/10. the dining, as others have said, was a production. it was amazing. i don’t even know where the 0.5 deduction is going towards LOL especially since im a non-rev. i didnt mind the inoperable storage cubby at all. everything else blew my mind away.

ps: i wrote this in parts, hence the different capitalization style LOL