Hello everyone and welcome to the second part of this series covering my quick trip to Istanbul, Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest. This particular part will include flight number two, TK1887 from Istanbul to Vienna!
On one random day in September my dad noticed he needed to stay 3 additional nights at a hotel before the end of 2016 in order to upgrade his membership level. Staying at one of their hotels in Stockholm was feasible but not too interesting for my dad. He asked me to look out for cheap fares to Europe in late-October/early-November when I had a week of holidays. I did what he asked for.
A few days pass and I come across an interesting fare from Stockholm to Vienna, a fare involving TK, two early-morning departures and a stopover at IST. Dates were 30 October - 02 November. The fare was at $110 R/T per person and I know a piece of checked baggage and food is included with TK. The other carriers (LH, OS, ET) etc were ranging from $170-250 R/T per person, the fare with TK was definitely the cheapest. I immediately told my dad about this, he seemed skeptical and was not pleased with the flight timings, 06:35 departure from ARN and 07:00 departure from Vienna. There were other flights but those ones were too expensive.
Anyways, after a few discussions we booked the tickets despite the timings and just went with it. Both of us had never been in Austria before us so it would be a new country for both. However, upon further inspection we obviously realised we had a 6 hour layover at IST, the thought about visiting the city popped up (country number 2 for the trip). I also forgot how close Slovakia was to Vienna, I had a thought about renting a car in VIE and then driving to Bratislava, Slovakia. Dad thought it was a good idea and agreed to it, that was the 3rd country for the trip. That was not all though, afterwards I saw Budapest was just a 200km drive away from Bratislava and told my father about it. Dad immediately agreed to it and a 4th country was added to the trip. The original plan was just to visit Austria but now it expanded to Turkey, Slovakia and Hungary. From one to four countries in a period of three days. All of this required extensive amount of planning but in the end I was still skeptical about it ever materializing, I told myself not to be disappointed if we only managed to visit Austria as that was the original plan.
NOTE: Pictures used in this report are taken with my camera and and my phone.
Itinerary
Part 1 - ARN-IST, TK1792, Turkish Airlines, Airbus A320-200, TC-JPR - Here
Part 2 - IST-VIE, TK1887, Turkish Airlines, Airbus A321-200, TC-JSV - You are here
Part 3 - VIE-IST, TK1890, Turkish Airlines, Airbus A321-200, TC-JRH - Here
Part 4 - IST-ARN, TK1795, Turkish Airlines, Airbus A321-200, TC-JSA - Here
It was time to get to the airport in order for us to fly to the second destination, namely Vienna. A quick lunch at Istanbul got to satisfy our stomachs before walking to the closest tram stop. A few hours ago we purchased two "return" tickets on the public transport system, but that was in fact a ticket för 2 single journeys. The ride from the airport to this place involved two single trips (metro and tram) which translates to our tickets not being valid for the return trip. This was our fault, the system was completely misunderstood. A purchase of new tickets had to be completed in order for us to get back, token machines were available by the tram stop but my dad's notes didn't work on any of them. Thankfully two friendly locals approached when they saw us struggling, they were very kind and helped us getting the tickets (token). The friendly locals must have wasted over 5 minutes on this (they also had issues with their coins/notes but still insisted on helping us), we thanked them sincerely and went towards the tram stop afterwards. It was a really nice gesture, a nice encounter before leaving Istanbul.
Connecting to the metro towards Istanbul-Atatürk Airport. Local time is 16:06, our flight departs at 18:25.
Istanbul metro train.
16:27 local time and we're at the airport's metro station.
A lift ride was required for us to get to the departures level.
Entrance to the departures.
There was a security check just after entering the actual building. Unluckily one security line closed down, forcing everyone to use another line. It was by no means the most efficient security check but understandable to have after everything that has happened in Turkey :(. However, I have no idea if this check has been in place before. I have seen similar processes around some airports in Asia though.
Made it through after 9 minutes, 16:41 local time.
Gate 217 for flight TK1887 to Vienna, a very bad picture of the FIDS indeed.
Passport control.
The passport control was followed by another security control before being airside.
Airside by 16:48 local time, boarding was scheduled to commence at 17:05 local time.
The gate assigned for our flight was gate 217.
Gate 217, thankfully it wasn't a bus gate.
I was not able to get a clear view of our ride from the gate area but I did get to see this BA B763 getting ready for departure from the adjacent gate.
Boarding for premium passengers commenced at 17:30 local time and a few minutes later for the rest of the pack. Boarding was divided into four zones, A to D. Me and my dad had zone "A" marked on our BPs which meant we could board rather quickly.
Flight information:
Airline: Turkish Airlines
Flight no & route: TK1887 IST-VIE
Aircraft: Airbus Industrie A321-200
Scheduled time of departure (actual): 18:05 (18:18) / 06:05 PM (06:18 PM) UTC +3
Scheduled time of arrival (actual): 18:25 (18:16) / 06:25 PM (06:16 PM) UTC +1
Scheduled flight time (actual): 2h 25 min (1h 58 min)
TC-JSV, An A321 delivered to TK in August 2015.
Walking through the jetbridge.
A couple of friendly FAs greeted me upon boarding before I continued to seat 25F and 25E. I noticed this plane was equipped with the latest seats and cabin.
A very new IFE system. The screen was identical to the screen found in QR's A380s and A350s. Pretty impressive for an A321.
The cabin was clean and unblemished, maybe not surprising with this young A321.
A closer look at the IFE screen.
I am not sure how the pitch compared to the older A320 but the legroom was much better, the actual seat was much more comfortable to sit on compared to the A320 seat.
17:43 local time.
The safety card wasn't in the best condition but it's there.
A USB-port and the dual-plug headphone jack are located on the bottom part of the screen. Magazines were found in this other pocket.
Handset.
Qeshm Air A300-600.
Loading up some cargo.
Coat hook.
Closed overhead bins by 17:58 local time, boarding is completed.
The safety video was displayed on the IFE screens during pushback, this particular safety video was newer than the last one.
Pushback from gate 217 at 18:06 local time.
BA 763.
KU A343.
MS E-170.
Taxiing to runway 35L, a 3000m-long runway.
Lining up.
Rolling down runway 35L at 18:18 local time.
Takeoff!
Climbing out of Istanbul.
Flying through some thick cloud layers.
Made it through. Unfortunately I couldn't watch the sunset as that was viewable from the other side of the aircraft.
Shop and miles magazine.
In case you're interested..
Planet Entertainment.
Inflight magazine.
TK-branded earplugs were handed out 12 minutes after takeoff. The quality was definitely not the best, I would recommend using your own headphones/earplugs if you have any with you. It is better than nothing but not even decent quality IMO.
Cruising, the captain constantly gave us information about the routing, weather etc.
Now to the IFE system. The system onboard this aircraft is state-of-the-art, the screen was of good size, the responsiveness was good and the resolution was satisfactory. TK had a good selection of movies and decent collection of music (didn't check the rest). There was a moving map but it wasn't working for me, I will make a deduction of 1 point because of that. The moving map exists but wasn't functioning on this flight, otherwise it would have been a 10/10. Absolutely fantastic IFE system with the flight length in mind (would have been spendid on a long-haul flight too). A decent amount of long-haul aircraft don't even feature this kind of IFE today. A USB-port and a dual-plug headphone jack can be found on the bottom part of the screen.
Flying into darkness. I listened to music and just relaxed for the most part.
Thank you Martin1405 for tracking my flight, appreciated! The destination was left as "not available" when he was tracking but I'm quite sure the aircraft flew to Vienna :).
Today's catering service began 50 minutes after departure. A full meal was served on this flight scheduled at 2 hours 25 minutes. The options were chicken or pasta, I went with the chicken option. The entrée consisted of pieces of chicken with rice and vegetables. The chicken was quite flavourful from my memory and it all made up for a great entrée. A small salad of cucumber, tomato and bits of lettuce was in one of the smaller bowl, then there was a chocolate mousse in a second smaller bowl. The mousse had a pretty good chocolate flavour, it was definitely one of the better airline desserts I've had over the years. I didn't have to request for a glass of water with my glass of OJ as there already was water in a small plastic cup. A bun was also handed out afterwards. In conclusion I would say it was an excellent meal provided by TK (Do & Co), great quality and quantity for a flight of this length. Additionally the FAs on this flight were pretty friendly and attentive.
Metal cutlery was nice. TK has stopped handing out menus on most of their flights for Y pax and has stopped offering the small Turkish delight (lokum) before the meal service, most likely as a cost-cutting effect of all the horrible events recently. TK is still miles ahead of most of its competitors in the catering department on these shorter flights.
A refreshing towel, butter and olive oil was also found on the tray.
I paid the lavatory a quick visit 35 minutes before arrival.
The flight to Vienna was completely full today.
Budapest, a city we were planning to visit on this trip.
A tea/coffee service was conducted as soon as we started descending for VIE. I completely forgot to include this picture in the report, thanks to NGO85 for reminding me (kind of) about that!
The city of Győr in Hungary. It's 18:01 local time right now (20:01 in Istanbul), and we've been descending for 10 minutes.
Descending to Vienna.
Approaching runway 34 at Vienna.
We landed at 18:16 local time.
Taxiing to our gate.
This was without hesitation an excellent short-haul flight with many aspects from long-haul flights. It had all the perks of a long-haul flight except for the actual length of the flight.
Passing an EVA Air B77W.
Continuing our taxi.
We are docked at our gate by 18:24 local time, exactly a minute ahead of our scheduled time of arrival.
The crew bid us farewell and we're off at 18:34 local time.
Welcome to Vienna! Walking to baggage claim.
Passport control, we are quickly through using the EU-line.
Belt 5 for flight TK1887 from Istanbul.
We got our bag, which arrived rather quickly. Dad went to a bathroom and then we went through customs.
¨
Officially arrived in Vienna, Austria. The plan was to book a rental car for tomorrow morning and then head to our hotel by train/metro. It was Sunday today, we had Monday and Tuesday on us before going back to Stockholm on Wednesday morning. We were planning to visit Bratislava tomorrow morning, Budapest later in the evening and then Vienna on Tuesday. Rental car offices at VIE are located at parking garage P4 so we headed out towards the garage.
Found it. Unfortunately most of the rental car companies didn't have any available cars or good deals left which should have been expected, a lesson learned for us to book in advance next time. However, one company suggested us to book online and come back with the reservation to save a bit. My father opened up his phone, booked a car in a minute or two and got back to the agent at the office. He confirmed everything, we paid a cross-border fee for driving in Slovakia and Hungary and we were done after some paperwork and a lot of minutes. The guy was very friendly and gave us lots of tips and help, we saved a decent amount by just booking online. However it was more messy than what it seems like, all of this took quite a lot of time but that is also our own fault.
Me and my dad actually wanted the car tomorrow morning but the agent told us we could take it tonight as it didn't cost more. We agreed to getting the car right now, a lot more convenient than to take two trains.
An hour later we're done and can get our rental car, 19:55 local time.
A Suzuki Swift hatchback.
My father made sure everything with the car was alright while I checked our routing to the hotel on Google Maps, a few minutes pass and we are ready to leave the garage. An exit ticket is required to leave the garage. We did get one but couldn't find it after several minutes of searching, I went back to the office and got a new one. 15 minutes got wasted here and it was once again our own fault.
We are finally leaving the airport at 20:20 local time.
Driving towards the central parts of Vienna.
We made it to our hotel by 20:46 local time, a 26-minute ride from the airport to our hotel. Luckily my dad found one of the last free parking spots here. We checked-in to our hotel, purchased an E-vignette for Slovakian highways, took a shower and went to bed. I presume that's it for this FR. Thank you so much for taking your time to read this FR :). Have a good one!
Bonus, towards Bratislava. Part 1.
The night passes and it is 06:30 AM, my alarm goes off and I wake up. This was the view from our hotel room. The plan was to have some breakfast, pack our stuff and then leave for Bratislava.
A breakfast at 07:16 AM before leaving the hotel.
We are done with our final checks by 8 AM. Here we're putting our bag in the trunk of the car before heading out on the roads of Vienna.
Driving in the central parts of Vienna, on the way to the A4 motorway.
On the A4. Some music accompanied both of us on these rides.
Towards Bratislava.
Border to Slovakia.
In Slovakia.
Welcome to Bratislava, Slovakia! 09:26 AM local time.
My father circled around the city for a few minutes trying to decide where to park. We could have probably parked for free at many spots but just went to the Bratislava Castle which had a parking garage.
Parked, now it was time to see Bratislava for a few hours before heading out to Budapest, Hungary.
Bratislavský hrad (Bratislava Castle).
Dóm sv. Martina (St. Martin's Cathedral).
In the old town (Staré Mesto).
Tram.
1,5 hours pass and we feel like both of us are done here. My father drives us to a shopping mall called Aupark on the other side of the main bridge to have some lunch before heading to Budapest.
Entering a parking lot for the shopping mall, I think parking was free for three hours here.
Two last shots from Bratislava.
12:40 PM local time, soon time to head off to the next city, Budapest!
Bonus towards Budapest. Part 2.
Parked by the border between Slovakia and Hungary after 15 minutes worth of driving. We ran into some problems here taking the wrong exits when trying to buy a vignette for the Hungarian motorways. A lot of wasted time later, my dad purchased a vignette and we were able to find the right exit towards the road. Somehow we ended up on the side for trucks, we had no choice but to go through that area in the end.
Continuing the 200-km journey from Bratislava to Budapest.
Entering Budapest.
Made it to Budapest, Hungary. 15:01 (3:01 PM) local time.
Unfortunately we ran into more problems when it came to parking. Long-story short, we lost a good 20 minutes before actually getting to the hotel.
Szépművészeti Múzeum (Museum of Fine Arts).
Műcsarnok (Hall of Art).
Millenniumi emlékmű (Millenium monument) in Hősök tere (Heroes Square), Budapest.
Széchenyi Lánchíd (The Széchenyi chain bridge).
Budavári Palota (Buda castle).
Mátyás Templom (Matthias Church).
Halászbástya (Fisherman's bastion).
Bonus, towards Vienna. Part 3.
My breakfast at 7 AM this morning. I did definitely not go with the healthiest choice of cereals, I usually eat much healthier cereals in Sweden but couldn't resist but to make an exception once. We were on a trip after all.
I took a few pictures at daytime before leaving Budapest.
Driving to the M1 motorway at 09:03 AM.
Towards Vienna Airport, around a 227-km journey from Budapest.
Traffic at the border between Hungary and Austria.
Closing in on the airport.
We made it to the car rental return area after 2 hours 20 minutes. My dad also made sure to refuel the car before leaving it.
The train station at the airport. We got our tickets inside the terminal building, getting to the station requires a few minutes of walking from the terminal. I am not sure if tickets could be bought at the station.
The Vienna S-bahn, similar to the commuter trains in Stockholm. However, these trains go way beyond the city limits. The commuter rail in Stockholm only has a few stations outside of Stockholm. An older train on picture.
Fortunately we got a newer train. It was comfortable and spotless inside.
Connecting to a metro train before arriving at the hotel.
Schloß Schönbrunn (Schönbrunn Palace).
Naturhistorisches Museum Wien (Museum of Natural History Vienna).
Neue Burg.
Austrian Parliament building.
Votivkirche (The Votive Church).
Domkirche St. Stephan (St. Stephen's Cathedral).
Thank you very much for taking your time to read all of this! Have a good one, see you :).
Thank you for sharing another amazing FR! :)
I hope you liked your short stay in Istanbul! It's a great city.
You were lucky that you got a new cabin with new IFE! It looks nice and clean.
The seat pitch doesn't look bad!
No problem for tracking your flight! It was a little bit difficult. I couldn't find your flight as the destination was left as "not available".
Catering on TK flight seems very good! I am glad you liked it a lot!
I love your wing view photos, especially in darkness!
Great arrival shots and VIE looks great!
Amazing tourism bonus from Bratislava, Budapest and Vienna!!! Lovely pics!
Thank you again for your excellent FR! Can't wait to read your next great FRs!
See you!!! :)
Thank you very much for your nice comment :).
I enjoyed it a lot, thank you!
I completely understand, you still managed to catch the correct flight :).
Catering was definitely good!
Thank you very much for your supportive comments, I appreciate it a lot :).
The next FR won't be up for a while, my laptop broke down.
Have a good one, see you later!
Thanks for the FR!
Its a shame that TK doesn't have menus any more. On my flights (this July) VCE-IST-JFK this summer there were menus. That was after the terror attack but before the coup. Turkey is going through some hard times but hopefully that beautiful country will overcome! Also, its cool that there was the new IFE on your A321. Was it a newer plane? On my A321 on VCE-IST, there was an older version which wasn't AVOD. My 777 on the IST-JFK flight (only 3 months old at the time) had the new one though.
Best,
Max
Thank you very much for your nice comment :).
Interesting, thanks for sharing that info! I think they implemented these changes in August/September. It is really sad for the whole country, I also hope it gets better soon!
That is correct, this is a newer A321 featuring the latest-IFE system in their narrow-bodies at least. This particular A321 was delivered in August 2015 :). You got a 77W which was only 3 months old? That is really nice!
Thank you very much for stopping by :).
Have a good one, see you later!
“Boarding was divided into four zones, A to D. Me and my dad had zone "A" marked on our BPs which meant we could board rather quickly.”
- Smart of airlines to board back to front to help alleviate the logjam at the entrance of the plane. Unlike US carriers, which insist on boarding front to back.
The new TK seats do like sharp. I like how they got rid of the diagonal patterns and stuck to window seats being red only.
“Qeshm Air A300-600.”
- Exotic carrier and aircraft ;)
“this particular safety video was newer than the last one.”
- I got an email last week from TK promoting their new safety video. I didn’t bother going to the youtube link to watch it, but it seems to be an attempt by TK to follow suit of some other carriers at developing unique company images.
“In case you're interested..”
- That’s really thoughtful of TK to let me do my refrigerator and washing machine shopping on the plane ;) I’ve seen a lot of ridiculous stuff in duty free shops in Asia, but refrigerators is a new one.
The main looks really good, better than a majority of the long-haul Y meals I’ve seen. The rest of the tray looks similar to what they have on the snack pack on shorter flights (just without a hot main). I had the same chocolate mouse on one of my flights and also thought it was really good. No coffee/tea service after the meal?
Fantastic bonuses. Bratislava and Vienna bring back lots of memories from my time in GRZ. Your dusk and night shots in Budapest were fantastic. Looks like the weather was good the days you were there^^
Thanks for sharing this FR and I’ll see you for the return!
Thank you very much for your nice comment :).
“Unlike US carriers, which insist on boarding front to back.”
- It'll hopefully become normal there too soon. Thank you for sharing the info.
“I like how they got rid of the diagonal patterns and stuck to window seats being red only.”
- Valid point, I definitely agree.
I presume they mailed you about their even newer safety video made with Zach King, which was released on Youtube exactly one day after this IST-VIE flight was flown.
“but it seems to be an attempt by TK to follow suit of some other carriers at developing unique company images.”
- Most likely, I agree.
Hahaha, this was an interesting one when it comes to inflight shopping.
“No coffee/tea service after the meal?“
- Fantastic catch! There was a coffee/tea service afterwards but I completely forgot to include it. I will try to include it later on. Thank you very much for noticing, I appreciate it.
Thank you so much for the nice comments, appreciated :). You've been in Graz? That's nice. Luckily the weather turned out to be satisfactory for pictures.
Thanks for stopping by.
The next FR won't be up for a while, I kind of killed my laptop. Have a good one, see you!
Great tarmac and takeoff pictures at IST at dusk.
The moving map is the most important feature of an IFE system IMO. Real too bad that it was not working on this flight. This IFE is nevertheless a significant plus in a single aisle aircraft.
Very convincing catering - again above European standards. The traditional lokum is a very minor loss in this impressive offering.
Superb triple bonus; each of these cities of course deserves of course much more time than you allocated them.
Thanks for sharing !
Thank you for your very nice comment :).
“The moving map is the most important feature of an IFE system IMO.“
- I definitely agree, it would have felt worse if this was a long-haul flight but I usually don't get IFE anyway on many European flights so I was okay with it for this 2-hour hop. Would have been a 10/10 if it worked. I am also not sure why it didn't work on the IST-ARN flight either, not sure if just bad luck or not. I hope it started working afterwards.
“Very convincing catering“
- Better than a lot of meals I've had on medium- to long-haul flights! With my small amount of experience in that segment.
Thank you very much. Absolutely, they definitely deserved more time. I wish we had stayed for a longer period but the fares were much more expensive on similar dates, probably because of the holidays. The budget did not allow more time this time, but I am still extremely appreciative of my dad being down for a trip albeit a short one.
Thank you for stopping by :).
Have a good one, see you later!