Review of Turkish Airlines flight from Erbil to Istanbul in Business

This was my 1000th flight.

I originally booked FlyBaghdad from Erbil to Istanbul. I booked online, I paid and I received a confirmation. The day before departure I went to Manage my booking on their website. Surprise: my flight was moved from Saturday morning to Saturday afternoon to 8 hours later. I had not been notified and I only noticed the changes by chance. The new departure time was not acceptable for me as I had a flight on a different booking from Istanbul to Amsterdam on Saturday afternoon.

I had to book another flight last minute. Turkish had a flight from Erbil to Istanbul on Friday night. The one-way price was over 500€ in economy and over 800€ in business. I checked the award ticket booking options and I was lucky: this flight could be booked with approximately as many miles as I had on my account and, thanks to a special promotion, business class could be booked for the same amount of miles as economy class.

I pre-arranged a taxi that took me from the hotel to the airport for IQD 10,000 (7$). There's a first checkpoint where cars and passengers are searched. Then a few kms away there's a Meet and Greet building. Cars can park in front of it but are not allowed to go further. Passengers walk through the building (flight bookings are checked) and board a free shuttle bus that drives them to the actual terminal building in four or five minutes.

The terminal is a nice modern building. 

There's a security control at the entrance to get to the check-in area. It was not crowded: Iraqis don't travel a lot as it's very difficult for them to get a visa and very few foreigners visit Iraqi Kurdistan. There are only around 30 flights a day.

There are separate lanes for economy and business class check-in for Turkish Airlines. 

A diplomat travelling on a UN passport tried to overtake me in the business class line by asking impatiently: business? The line was very short and check-in didn’t take more than two minutes. I noticed after boarding that he was actually travelling in economy. 

Passport control was similarly quick.

There's one lounge for all airlines. It's upstairs. 

It's not big but lounge but there weren't too many passengers. The lounge is called Newroz. 

The lounge includes a seating area (see the photo below) and two staff members who looked extremely bored (no photo).

Drinks including alcohol are available free of charge and so are snacks but it's all very simple. 

There was another security control with no waiting time.

Flights departing that night:

The airport is modern and not crowded.

Boarding started when I got to the gate. Priority boarding was simple: an agent asked loudly "any business passengers?".

Our plane was TC-LPA, an A321neo that was only one month old.

The plane has four rows of business class in a 2+2 configuration. A beautiful, modern cabin in very good condition.

The seat controls are simple.

Legroom is more than enough.

Headphones.

Load was 7/16.

The cabin before take-off:

Welcome drink.

Flight information before departure.

Push-back was at 22.01 for a scheduled departure time of 21.55. We took off at 22.13.

Meal service started a short time after take-off. Let’s have a look at the menu.

The appetizer, the salad, the cheese and the dessert were first served on a tray.

Selection of Thurkish meze.

There was a choice of three hot meals. I had Potpourri of Grilled Seafood, seabass, salmon and prawn, leaf spinach, buttered potatoes, lemon caper butter.

İmam Bayildi stuffed eggplant in olive oil; selection of cheese; homemade dulce de leche flan.

The meal was delicious, flavourful, plentiful and was as good as in a good restaurant on land.

Meal service was completed only 40 minutes after take-off.

No alcoholic drinks were available on this flight.

Packaged hazelnut was offered after the meal.

There’s a good IFE (in-flight entertainment) on Turkish Airlines with 644 movies, 1382 TV programs and 2094 pieces of music.

Kids entertainment and Games are also available.

I listened to music in the remaining time. The cabin crew checked several times if the passengers needed anything.

We landed at 00.43 and were at the gate at 00.53 for a scheduled arrival time of 00.35.

Istanbul Airport was quite empty at this time.