Review: United Polaris Lounge San Francisco SFO
Review: United 777-200ER Polaris Business Class San Francisco SFO to Paris CDG
Review: Turkish Airlines A330-300 Economy Class Paris CDG to Istanbul IST
Review: Pegasus Airlines A320-200 Economy Class Istanbul SAW to Kayseri ASR
Trip Photos: A Week in Istanbul and Cappadocia
Review: Turkish A321-200 Economy Class Nevsehir NAV to Istanbul IST
Review: Turkish Airlines Business Class Lounge Istanbul IST
Review: Turkish Airlines 777-300ER Business Class Istanbul IST to Chicago ORD

YOUTUBE: United Airlines: San Francisco (SFO) to Paris (CDG)
YOUTUBE: Turkish Airlines: Paris (CDG) to Istanbul (IST)
YOUTUBE: Pegasus Airlines: Istanbul (SAW) to Kayseri (ASR)
YOUTUBE: Turkish Airlines: Nevsehir (NAV) to Istanbul (IST)
YOUTUBE: Turkish Airlines: Istanbul to Chicago (ORD)

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After spending a few hours in the fantastic Turkish Business class lounge, it was time to get on a nice 10 hour flight to Chicago.

The gate was a loooooong walk from the lounge, given that our gate was pinned deep in the F concourse, so something to keep in mind as you plan your journey to your gate.

Once we got there, surely our gorgeous 777-300ER was waiting to board us and take us over.

IST-ORD
Boeing 777-300ER
4 May 2023

Turkish’s business class on their 777 is outdated, way past its good days, and in need of a refresh.

The cabin has in 7 rows in a 2-3-2 layout across 2 cabins…yes that’s right, some people as business class passengers could have a middle seat in the year 2025. The first cabin has 4 rows and the rear cabin has 3 rows.

Once we boarded, I went straight to my seat 7K.

At seat 7K you have a neighbor that you might have to step over during the flight to get out of your seat.

Waiting at our seat was a single pillow and a thin packaged blanket. Both are sufficient for rest purposes, but this is a pretty measly offering in terms of bedding, especially for an airline with Turkish’s reputation. The seat padding was pretty decently cushioned to my liking.

There was a shared center console between the seats which had a decent amount of space. Just next to that was also a fairly intuitive set of seat controls.

In front of the seat was fairly large ottoman with slippers and a shoe bag on it.

The screen was decent-sized, but definitely on the older side.

After some time, the crew came around with pre-departure beverages with a choice of water, orange juice, or strawberry lemonade.

Below the armrest in between the 2 seats a little storage area where a universal power port can be found.

The remote control was also in this area can could be pulled out by a button if needed.

There was also a headphone jack and a USB-A port as well as a second port I can only assume to be USB-B.

As I showed earlier, Turkish provides a shoe bag with slippers inside of it that you can use for the flight. I always appreciate airlines providing slippers.

The crew also provided headphones to everyone, but unfortunately, you do have to return them at the end of the flight.

Turkish Airlines has an in-flight chef concept on these long flights. They are essentially crew members who also carry some more knowledge of the food you are eating and they are dressed like chefs in a kitchen. These specific crew members came around and handed us the wine and food menu shortly after.  We’ll take a deeper look at this in a short bit.

We also got an amenity kit.

The contents were fairly basic, but for me were more than sufficient for this 10 hour flight.

The crew on this particular flight were professional without a doubt, but were not particularly friendly in my opinion. There was no personal touch or even a smile with any of the service, just going through the motions.

Eventually we began our pushback and taxiied to our departure runway 36.

Thankfully our departure runway was quite close to our gate, which otherwise can be quite a long taxi at IST.

Once the crew was allowed to begin service, they came around and took our orders for a post-departure drink, for which I went with a glass of champagne.

In preparation for service I opened my tray table. The tray table is by your side in between the 2 seats. To open the tray table, you have to kind of pull it by the handle but tilted at an angle then the tray table comes out.

Shortly after the crew came around with hot towels on a plate.

And then the crew set our tray tables as well.

By now, you guys are probably wondering what’s on the menu. Well, let’s take a look. This is where Turkish Airlines truly shines its brightest.

As you can see, Turkish has a really good selection of foods and beverages.

The crew eventually came back around with a bowl of somewhat warm nuts and a drink of our choice. I went with champagne for this one and Turkish serves Tattinger Brut champagne in their business class which is reasonably nice.

I really love Turkish’s plating and food holders they have.

Our tables were set with some bread, butter, oils, a table setting, Turkish’s signature candlelight (its not real) and some water.

It was a beautiful day for flight as we made our way out into Europe.

Turkish Airlines took that tray from earlier and loaded it up with its appetizers. They all looked super appetizing.

So the way it works is there’s a list of appetizers on the menu and you can choose any of them you want to eat. You can optionally choose soup as well.

From the list of options, I chose the cheese spring rolls, hummus, seafood salad, and smoked salmon. The  cheese rolls were okay. They were flavorful but lukewarm. The hummos was really good, and the seafood salad was good as well. The smoked salmon was excellent but maybe I just take that for granted from airlines these days.

The soup was a tomato soup, which was flavorful and had a mild kick to it, which was really nice.

For main course, I went with the smoked salmon and it was excellent. The spinach bed underneath was good too. I also appreciated that they put lemon on the salmon.

Eventually, the crew brought out the dessert card which had a mix of cheeses, Turkish, and Western desserts.

I went for a cheese plate, fruit plate, a turkish baklava called kadayif, and some hot tea.

The meal service was delicious overall, but this is really no surprise as DO&CO is universally regarded as the gold standard when it comes to inflight catering.

After wrapping up meal service, I decided to check out the lavatories once I was done.

They had some scents in the bathroom as well.

After meal service was done, the crew actually brought around seat covers for everyone and even offered to make your bed for you. I took the bed cover but I declined the service for the time being as I was still working for a little bit before I wanted to catch some ZZZs.

Eventually, I set my bed up and got ready for a midday rest. As much as I don’t like how Turkish’s business class seats lack privacy, there is a silver lining. When you are in the lay flat position, your view of the rest of the cabin, including your neighbor, is reasonably obscured in the window seat. If you were in the aisle seat, you would be separated from your neighbor, but completely exposed to the aisle. The bed was comfy, but just long enough for me and I’m 5′ 10″. So for any of the six footers, you might have to turn to your side or bed your legs a little.

The crew also gave everyone a water bottle prior to entering slumber mode.

After sleeping for maybe 4.5 hours, I woke up and it was time for food again. The second course started with a caprese salad which was perfectly fine. There was also a side salad which was a bit dry.

The main course was a traditional karniyarik and dolmas. Karniyarik is an eggplant dish that is stuffed with vegetables and minced meat. This was pretty flavorful and enjoyable.

For dessert we had a profiterole that was covered in chocolate. It was fluffy, light, and tasty.

All in all, this was a delicious meal. I can’t say enough good things about Turkish’s catering top to bottom. On average you’ll have some of the best food you’ve ever had on a plane with this airline.

Unfortunately, all good things come to an end, and this flight was wrapping up. This meant it was time to return the headphones. Turkish unfortunately does collect them prior to arrival so if you are watching something, you’ll have to wrap it up ahead of time.

Eventually the captain gave his pre-arrival message as we were flying over Lake Michigan and began our journey down into Chicago.

Fun fact while we’re here, the GE-90 engine you see above and below me? That engine is wide enough that it can fit the body of a 737 inside of it. It’s really an engineering marvel.

I’m going to keep it real simple with this one. Turkish Airlines consistently has excellent food across the board, but their 777 seats are way past their prime. Having a middle seat in business class in this day and age is very uncompetitve. Having to climb over a sleeping neighbor to enter the aisle is very uncompetitive. Service was fine on this flight but nothing special. Turkish’s lounge in Istanbul is fantastic, one of the best in the world and it probably has the best lounge food of any business class lounge I’ve been to. Would I fly Turkish again? Absolutely yes but you best bet I will be seeking out those A350s and 787s.