Review of Turkish Airlines flight from Singapore to Istanbul in Economy

Pleasantly surprised, great food, comfortable experience, would fly again

This was the 1st leg of my 2-leg flight to Madrid. Months before the flight, my original flight had an operational change, so TK let me rescheduled on this flight which is of a better timing free-of-charge, albeit leaving me with a tight connection of 1h30m in IST.

As soon as I boarded, I was surprised by a very colorful amenity kit bag on my seat. Turns out everyone in economy is entitled to a lovely amenity kit (mind you SQ does not even give business class passengers amenity kits), with an eye mask and disposable slippers folded nicely in the amenity kit bag.

I was seated in window seat 14K, which only weeks before I realized on Aerolopa that the seat is a partial window view. A normal window seat has full access to at least 1 window, and the other may be slightly behind or beside the seat. In my case I'm missing the full access window, but it turned out better than I imagined, I still get to peek out of the window and take cool pics so it does not bother me at all.

Since this is a red-eye flight, I was expecting a light supper, but an hour and a half into the flight (~1am) I was served a warm meal instead of a snack. I've always heard about people avoiding chicken on flights (due to the rubbery texture after multiple rounds of reheating the chicken), but my meal which I'm told is the "chicken rice" (quite different from the Singaporean version apparently) is not rubbery at all. The sauce is slightly spicy, but works well with the chicken and rice. So well that I savored every last drip of the sauce with the remaining rice. For dessert, a moist chocolate cake was served, a great way to end the meal. I managed to finish everything, and this was after a huge dinner I had at the airport. Also, notice the metal cutlery, a relatively rare sight on economy class these days.

Managed to sleep okay for a few hours. Having the "windowless" seat helped slightly since I had a smooth surface to lean against as a side sleeper.

Movie of choice after waking up was "Oregon", a 2023 Turkish film based in Istanbul to get myself into the Istanbul mood, and to look for inspiration for places to visit in my upcoming layover. The IFE also boasts a wide selection of English films which I didn't have the time for since I spent most of my time sleeping.

As the movie comes to a close, we're getting closer to IST. I paused the movie and turned on the flight mode on the IFE, which shows the front and below views of the plane. Also took a few shots of Istanbul at dawn.

Spotted another aircraft flying alongside us:

And finally we landed at IST, which I'm told is a massive airport. That's why I picked 14K so that I can to deplane earlier with my 1.5h layover.

Now transferring at IST requires me to go through security, so I've watched videos on how to navigate through IST. Walking through the long corridors I noticed a sign that says "Transfers below 2 hr" (or similar), but the staff told me and others that it's closed and we had to walk all the way to security like everyone else, so I picked up my pace and continued.

Security line was long, but manageable. In the end I managed to have some time to buy some baklavas at the duty-free shop, so 1.5h is definitely sufficient.