I was meant to be flying on Qatar Airways from Manchester to Lahore via Doha on a ZED ticket.
The flight was full and I then decided I would fly on Turkish instead via Istanbul to Karachi ( in 2008 at the time of this trip,,Karachi was TK's sole Pakistani destination).
The aircraft was an A321 TC-JMG named "Kirikkalle" and as I walked down the airbridge I saw newspapers on a trolley.
My first ever glimpse of TK cabin crew was the Cabin Chief by the Cockpit area and a miserable young Airhostess who looke dliek she hadn't smiled for a long time. She remained miserable throughout the flight.
I was assigned seat 12A (window) and luckily the seat next to me was free as the gentleman who would have sat there went to join his family. None of the crew seemed to smile. The seats were two tone Turquoise blue with very small red flower details. Business and Economy Class were separated by a pink curtain and row B of ABC in Business Class was blocked.
No Inflight Entertainment at all, not even a moving map but there was the nice inflight magazine SkyLife.
The meal choices were Beef or Pasta. I chose the Penne Pasta with melted cheese ( lukewarm) and this was accompanied by sweetcorn salad with a lemon vinaigrette and a warm wholemeal bread roll and butter. To finish off, there was a delicious Apple and Cinnamon cake. Drinks were aplenty but I found it odd that milk was squirted into tea from children's cartons. Turkish had recently joined Star Alliance and I hoped that standards would improve.
A very smooth but uneventful flight. The crew were happy to pose for a photo with me however as a souvenier. And with a smile !
Airports I have seen Turkish in or have flown with Turkish from/to
LHR/IST/AMS/LHE/JFK/BKK/KWI/JFK
