Happy New Year to all and welcome to my first report for 2015. This report consists my trip to South Africa for travelling and visit friends. My schedule is as follow: TK TLV-IST Y A332 TK IST-CPT (via Johannesburg) Y A333 SA CPT-JNB Y A346 TK JNB-IST Y A333 TK IST-TLV Y A320
2nd flight on Turkish Airlines 3rd flight on A330-200 9th time in Turkey
I am excited to try three new experiences on this trip - TK wide body jets (I flew on TK A321 - http://flight-report.com/en/report-7507.html) and a new airline - South African Airways and a new country - South Africa!
My plan was to stay almost 2 weeks in cape town area and meet my friends and travelling around the city too!
Day of the flight!!! I drooped off at Ben Gurion International Airport at 6:30PM - When my flight scheduled to depart at 9:20PM, so I had enough time to pass the security checks, to visit in the duty free and also in Dan Lounge and to do a little spotting (It was bad!) Our flight scheduled to depart on time (TK789): I passed Ben Gurion special check in and after that i was booked for seat 14A on TLV-IST sector and 18A on IST-JNB-CPT sector. Not for me today :( After that I went to the securtiy of the handy-luggage, only 2 counters were actived and a lot of passengers, most of them to Istnabul, USA and the Far East were waiting for +25 mins. After that I went to the passport control, Again only 3 counters of 40 were actived and a chinese women had been stucking in the line and delayed me!!! On our way to the Duty-Free, a pretty impresive duty-free zone: Delta Boeing 777-200ER to New York - JFK: El Al Boeing 767-300 to Beijing-Capital: United Airlines Boeing 777-200ER to Newark: I was hungry so I bought a salmon sandwich and orange juice for me, it cost 42NIS = 13$ View from dan lounge, some El Al's 737 and American Airlines A330-200 (Sorry for the bad quality): As I called to go to the gate I was running as fast as I can to gate B6: My ride for this short-flight today: Airbus A330-200 of Turkish Airlines, named Antalya (Tourist city in south of Turkey, I've there 7 times at all), old livery. I was suprised to see the old livery :) On the plane. View back and foward from seat 11A. Most of the passengers were Chineses, Koreans, Turkishs, Israelis and some europeans. The load was about 68% - I saw a lot of empty rows on this short sector. Seat pitch is acceptable: We got headphones from the nicely cabin crew: Our plane before departure in TLV: IFE of THY: Impresive wing and a dirty window: Safety video: Flight time scheduled to be 1 hour and 50 minutes - Very short flight for wide-body jet. Cabin before departure, I liked the colors: Heading to runway 26 from the plane camera: Taxi: After take-off: We got a light supper 25 minutes after take off. The meal was very tasty and enough for short flight (less than 2 hours flight), I drank coke and we got also crackers: Cursing: I moved to the front of the economy class cabin in seat 7A to get a better view of the wing: The IFE crashed in the mid of the flight, I could see only the flight map. As we were flying near the Istanbul we were staying 1:15 hours in the air and we were rolling over Bursa as Ataturk Airport is very busy airport and there was a fog over Istanbul Area: There were rumors about landing in Izmir, sleeping in hotel for the whole night and after that to drive to Istabul by Bus, As a result I could miss my flight to South Africa, but Although the fog we landed in Istanbul. Finally we landed at 01:08, after 2 hours and 52 minutes of flying. My connecting flight scheduled to depart at 00:50, so I thought that I missed my flight… Wait for the next flight report! Gate 205, I also arrived to this gate after landing from TLV in 2013!!!
Regards and thanks for reading!!! Yonatan Paz
See more
Verdict
Turkish Airlines
8.4/10
Cabin8.0
Cabin crew9.5
Entertainment/wifi7.0
Meal/catering9.0
Independent Dan Lounge
6.9/10
Comfort6.0
Meal/catering6.0
Entertainment/wifi7.0
Services8.5
Tel Aviv - TLV
9.5/10
Efficiency10.0
Access10.0
Services8.5
Cleanliness9.5
Istanbul - ISL
8.9/10
Efficiency8.5
Access9.0
Services9.0
Cleanliness9.0
Conclusion
Everyone knows that Turkish Airlines is a graet airline - Also in short routes like Tel Aviv-Istanbul. It was a great flight - As I flew on A330, enjoyed from great food and served by nicely cabin crew. The delayed very scared my because I could miss my flight and most of the passengers on this sector. I will fly again Turkish Airlines!!! And you? Tell me!!!!
0 LIKESLIKE TO THANK THE AUTHORTHANKS ! FLIGHT-REPORT LIKED
Thanks for sharing. That's great that TK uses a widebody on this short flight! Definitely want to try Turkish one day. Hope you had fun in South Africa--I really liked it when I visited last year.
The flight wasn't full. 737-900 could make the work. But I think that they sends A330 because they don't have flights from 6PM-12AM. Meal was nice, I wasn't so hungry either
Flight-Report is a free website hosting more than 500 000 pictures and 17 000 reviews, without ads, this website can't exist. We understand that ads can be annoying, this is why we only display a maximum of 2 non-invasive ads per page.
To continue using Flight-Report, we invite you to add Flight-Report to your blocker's "white list".
#15 out of 94 Airlines A minimum of 10 flight-reports within the past two years is required to appear in the rankings.
778 reviews
7 Comments
It is indeed great that TK uses widebodies on short routes.
Shalom, léhitraot békarov ;)
TK must be doing really good on the TLV route as they regularly send wide bodies.
The pics are blurry but we can still see that the meal was very decent for a flight of this duration.
Login to post a comment.