Review of Turkish Airlines flight from Hong Kong to Istanbul in Economy

THY

TK - Turkish Airlines

Flight taken on 14 December 2024
TK71
23:20 12h 00m 06:20
Class Economy
Seat 34K
NGD16
974 · 43 · 0 · 18

Hello everyone! Welcome to the return flight from Hong Kong to Istanbul with Turkish Airlines. The day before the flight, I tried to check-in online on the web but there were some errors and I could not finish the process, but only had my seat allocated by the system. Therefore, I arrived at the airport roughly 3 hours before departure.



As expected, there was a long queue and it took me 30 minutes to get my luggage checked and the boarding pass. There was another queue for those who checked in with the QR code on hand, and it was much faster than the general economy queue.


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There weren't so many people at the security check and immigration, which I could go through in 15 minutes. My gate was assigned at 23, which is not far away and I did not need to take the people mover.


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The paper boarding passes.


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I was searching for the inbound flight TK70 from Istanbul and it seemed that there was a departure delay for 5 hours. Obviously there was a scheduling issue with Turkish Airlines, because the previous flight from Seoul back to Istanbul was schedule to arrive at Istanbul at 6:15am, so no way that it can meet the departure time of TK70 at 2:05am. I read some reports that Turkish Airlines overstretched their long-haul flight and caused huge delay for flight to Asia now. For those to consider flying Turkish Airlines to Asia, please be careful.

At last, this plane supposed to arrive at 17:05pm showed up at 21:51pm.


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Our flight was code-shared with Hong Kong Airlines, and New Zealand Airlines.


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There were still some times left and I visited the Sky bridge which is on the opposite side of my gate.


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Air France A350-900, F-HUVE to Paris as AF185.
British Airways B787-9, G-ZBKD to London as BA32.


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At the satellite terminal, there was a Thai Airways A320ceo HS-TXL to Bangkok as TG603 at 7:55am the next morning. Cathay Pacific Airways A321neo B-HPI to Fukuoka as CX512 at 8:45am the next morning. Air China A321ceo B-9919 to Beijing as CA118 at 8:30am the next morning.


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The FIDS.


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The new boarding time was 22:45pm as showed on the panel above the gate door. At 22:30 people started to queue up in front of the gate. There were 3 queues, one was for the business class and priority boarding, the second one was for seat number 40 to 53, and the third one for seat number in the front. I was in queue 3.


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Boarding started at 22:50pm. The automatic boarding gates were not used and was done manually by the ground staff.


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My seat 34K. Pillow, blanket and headphone were placed on the seat. One thing that I like Turkish Airlines is that they are still keeping the 3-3-3 seat configuration in the economy class, whereas a lot of airlines have already changed it to 3-4-3. For example, Cathay Pacific Airways. The seat pitch is just 17.2" and with Turkish Airlines, it is 17.9''


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Back of the economy seat with welcome screen. The USB port was working fine.


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View out of my seat.


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In less than 20 minutes, boarding was completed. The middle seat remained unoccupied. The cabin light was then dimmed for take off. At 23:20pm, our captain announced that the flight time was 11 hours and 13 minutes. Safety demonstration video was played and pushback was initiated 2 minute later.



While we were taxing to runway, the cabin light was turned off completely. Eventually, we took off at 23:40pm.


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Passing through Hong Kong Disneyland.


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Soon we entered China airspace.


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7 minutes after takeoff, the cabin light was turned on again. Then I switched to the live TV channel, Sport24. I could manage to watch the second half of the English Premier league Liverpool vs Fulham.


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Half an hour after takeoff, menu and amenity kits were provided. Not long after that, I got dozed off and by the time I woke up the match was already running into 83 minutes.


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At 0:54am, dinner was served. I opted for the chicken pasta, with an orange juice.


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At 1:02am, the football match was finished and I started to watch the Alien: Romulus.


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Had a cup of coffee when the crew returned to collect my tray.


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About 10 minutes later, a bottle of water was distributed.


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A few minutes later, the cabin light was turned off. I had a look at the flight map and we were flying over Sichuan Provence in China.


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At 1:50am, I visited the lavatory at the back of the aircraft.


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The cabin mood lighting.


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Somehow I was attracted by the scenery out there. Although we were flying in the middle of the night, I could still be able to see the snow mountains and landscape in the Gansu province in China.


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I slept for 3 hours and woke up at 5:05am, I checked the flightmap and we just left the China boarding and flew over the east Kazakhstan.


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The landscape below was covered in snow.


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I kept watching the movie until 6:00am, then I slept for a further 2 hours. I woke up again at 8:11am and I checked again the flight map and found out we were flying over the west coast in Kazakhstan into Caspian Sea. A few minutes later, the cabin lights were turned on again.


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At 8:25am, I started watching the second movie, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore.


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20 minutes later, breakfast was served. I opted for the scrambled egg and an orange juice.


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Passing through probably Tbilisi in Georgia.


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At 9:25am, the cabin light was switched to some sort of mood lighting.


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While I was watching the movie, I feel asleep and took a nap for about 25 minutes. I woke up at 10:20am. A few minutes later, the captain announced that we had started the descend into Istanbul airport. Temperature was 8 degree Celsius in Istanbul. Not long after that, the cabin light was turned off for landing.


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At local time 5:58am, we landed on runway of Istanbul Airport. Total flight time was 11 hours and 18 minutes.


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Finally we parked at gate D9.


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Last view of the aircraft.


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Total flight route. The route was different from the inbound flight from Istanbul, which we flew over the south Asia. Instead we took a relative northern route which passed through China, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia before reaching Türkiye.


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Thanks for reading!

Display all

Product ratings

Airline

Turkish Airlines 8.5

  • Cabin8.0 / 10
  • Cabin crew8.5 / 10
  • Entertainment/wifi9.0 / 10
  • Meal/catering8.5 / 10
Departure airport

Hong Kong - HKG8.5

  • Efficiency8.5 / 10
  • Access8.5 / 10
  • Services8.5 / 10
  • Cleanliness8.5 / 10
Arrival Airport

Istanbul - IST8.5

  • Efficiency8.5 / 10
  • Access8.5 / 10
  • Services8.5 / 10
  • Cleanliness8.5 / 10

Conclusion

Another pleasant journey with Turkish Airlines. The food was good, and there was a great variety of entertainment.The new Istanbul was also very modern and spacious.

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