Review Turkish Airlines, Economy Class from Zurich to Istanbul

Paul‘s Flight Report for
Turkish Airlines
Member of: Star Alliance
Flight: TK1912
Route: ZRH - IST
Aircraft Type: Boeing 737-800
Flight Time: 2 hrs 30 min
Economy Class

General Impression: 🐑🐑🐑🐑🌿

Before the Flight:
Check-in Process:, 🐑🐑🐑🐑🌿
Security: 🐑🐑🐑🐑🐑
Lounge: N/A, economy
Information: 🐑🐑🐑
Boarding @ Gate: 🐑🐑🐑🐑
Staff @ these points: 🐑🐑🐑🌿
Boarding in Cabin: 🐑🐑🐑
Welcome Drinks: N/A
Punctuality: 🐑🐑🐑, 9 min delay
During the Flight :
Food presentation: 🐑🐑🐑🐑
Food quality: 🐑🐑🐑🐑🐑
Drinks: 🐑🐑🐑🐑🐑
Service Procedure: 🐑🐑🐑🐑🐑
Amenity Kit: N/A
Entertainment System: 🐑🐑🐑🐑🐑
Seat Quality: 🐑🐑🐑🌿
Legroom: 🐑🐑🐑
Lavatories: 🐑🐑🐑
Cleanliness: 🐑🐑🐑🐑
General Atmosphere: 🐑🐑🐑🐑
Announcement Pilots: 🐑🐑🐑🐑
Announcement Cabin: 🐑🐑🐑🐑
Cabin Crew: 🐑🐑🐑🐑
After the Flight :
De-Boarding: 🐑🐑🐑
Baggage Delivery: N/A
—-
🐑 = bad, a lot of work needs to be done
🐑🐑 = not good, you will be busy with corrections
🐑🐑🐑 = good & normal, nothing special
🐑🐑🐑🐑 = high level, but the icing on the cake is missing
🐑🐑🐑🐑🐑 = topnotch, leave me here!
🌿 = Half a Point/sheep
—-
On the Ground:
I checked-in on the website the evening before our flight. As we were traveling for a 2 days weekend trip we had no bags to be checked and we could skip the check in area at the airport.
We were traveling during the morning departure rush hour with a scheduled departure time of 06:45AM.
As always at Zurich Airport, there was no queue at the security check point.
Staff was friendly and were through security in 2 minutes.
After security, we headed to emigration and also here no queue at all.
Our flight departed from terminal E and we had to take the sky metro.

As we were flying economy and due to the early boarding time at 6:45, we did not use our priority pass to go to a lounge.

At the gate, the agents called all passengers who checked in online and did not pass by the check-in to see them at the counter for an additional document check.
The agents were very friendly and motivated.
Boarding started at the indicated boarding time and all announcements were clear and all procedures followed.
Boarding at Turkish Airlines is done by seat rows.

At the aircraft door we were greeted by a very friendly and smiling Senior Cabin Attendant and another cabin crew.

Inflight:
We were seated in row 5, right after business class.
The seats are okay in terms of comfort and have a good legroom. The Boeing 737-800 from Turkish Airlines has a fix Business Class if 16 seats in a 2/2 configuration and 134 economy seats in a 3/3 seating configuration.
As Turkish Airlines has a full inflight entertainment system, the seats were equipped with some headsets.
The inflight entertainment is really good and offers a huge variety of blockbusters, films, TV programs as well as music and games.
Every seat is equipped with a USB port to charge your devices and the aircraft was also equipped with WiFi.
TK has quite a big distinction for free access.
For Business Class passengers, everything is completely free. For miles and smiles members, the frequent traveler program of Turkish Airlines, texting & messaging is free for everyone, surfing depends on your status.
Non members of miles & smiles have to pay 5 US$ for unlimited messaging up to 15US$ for unlimited access, which is a fair price.
I would recommend to simply enroll to the miles & smiles program for free so you get free messaging.
Around 45 minutes after departure, the crew started with the inflight service. This is quite late as we were sitting in the aircraft for almost 1,5 hours prior take off. (boarding, de-icing etc. ) but...
Turkish Airlines offers a hot breakfast choice on this route and on the tray is also some yogurt, cheese, butter & jam and some bread.
A great looking tray and a very delicious breakfast for a flight of 2,5 hours. The kind of börek pastry was very tasty.
The service and crew were top and it is definitely one of the best inflight services in economy in Europe and many other places.

The Cabin Crew was welcoming and friendly. They were present in the cabin and they did a good job on this flight.

Announcement from the flight deck were good and understandable.
The announcements from the cabin crew good as well. Some of them were way too fast and others were good.

Landing in Istanbul was around 5 minutes after the scheduled time of 11:50 LT and arrival at the gate was at 12:17 local time.

Immigration in Istanbul was okayish.
The queues were long but moved fast. It took us around 25 minutes until we were through.
As we had no bags checked, we can not comment on baggage delivery.

Summary:

All in all a very good flight with Turkish Airlines.
Very delicious food and an absolutely fantastic inflight service. Definitely one of the best for many many parts of the world and the so called "Premium" Airlines from the Lufthansa group should be ashamed!
Very friendly and welcoming crew.
We would definitely re-choose Turkish Airlines in Economy Class for such a intra European flight.
I am already looking forward to test them in Business Class end of January when going back to South Africa.
Notes:
- Paul the Sheep does not get any benefits from the Hotels/Airlines etc.
- Paul will always pay for the services in order to be able to rate freely and truly about the experiences.
- If you are interested in more details, please send me a private message and I will be happy to share.