Review of Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul to Milan in Business

Background

This series covers a recent TATL trip. TK has a large presence in Italy serving 9 cities from Istanbul, but since they only fly to one airport in Lombardy, I will have to settle for a flight to Malpensa. TK offers 4x daily IST-MXP service with a mixture of wide-body and narrow-body aircraft, but the late departure TK1877 is currently operated by an A321ceo.

Routing

This report covers the flight from Istanbul to Malpensa, the TK Business Lounge, and the Sheraton Milan Malpensa Airport Hotel.

Arrival into Istanbul Airport

We start this report deplaning from TK80. As mentioned previously, Türkiye is part of the OSS program so I am immediately deposited back into Concourse D without having to complete transit security. The airport is very quiet and I'm quickly on my way back to the central area.

Turkish Airlines Business Lounge

The lounge entrances are kind of hidden. At the bottom of the escalator, an agent checks boarding passes to make sure passengers are eligible to use the lounge before allowing them to proceed upstairs.

After scanning my boarding pass to enter the lounge, I check the legend of the lounge. I will head off to the left side first to try and get a shower to freshen up after the long flight.

Walking up to the desk for the shower and sleep rooms, I was greeted and asked to follow one of them to the shower room. She told me to wait outside and she went in and checked the room thoroughly before letting me enter. Their shower rooms are nicely appointed and spacious with a good amount of amenities (towels, bath rope, slippers, loofa, hygiene kits, hair dryer, etc.).

After my shower, I head to the other side of the lounge to grab some food.

There are several chef stations throughout and I stop by the manti one to order a bowl.

My snack.

After eating, I wandered over to the peripheral areas of the lounge where there is a lot of open seating on the terrace that overlooks the terminal.

I grab a seat in the corner by the kid's area, which contained a rather cool airplane that my son would love.

A cup of espresso while I get some work done.

Views from the lounge are primarily over the main duty free area post-immigration.

Pre-Flight/Boarding

The FIDS tonight. Our flight would be leaving from B12A at 21:50 next to a flight to VKO at Gate B12B also at 21:50 so not sure how that is going to work out logistically.

Knowing how large IST is, I set off to the gate very early since it would be a long-trek to the end of the B Pier from the Business Lounge.

Down the escalator to enter the B Pier.

Still walking…

25 minutes after leaving the lounge, we arrive at the gate at the very tip of the B Pier. The mess is pretty much what I suspected since we are going to have two flights boarding at the same gate at the same time.

Tonight, we will get TC-JSI, named Tunceli after the city/province in eastern Türkiye. It is a 2013-built A321ceo with a 16J 164Y configuration.

They would let the flight to VKO start boarding while we were lined up with document checks since this was a flight into the Schengen zone. We were then queued in the jet bridge since the plane was not ready for us. After standing in the jet bridge for 5 minutes we were allowed to enter the plane. In the galley, I was welcomed on board by the friendly male FA that would work the J cabin. Our A321ceo will have the expected older generation J seats.

Flight

My seat, 3F. The photo was taken on arrival at MXP, but on boarding the pillow and seat belts were neatly organized. The seats are wide and comfortable with large adjustable headrest.

Seat pitch is very good and I was able to get out without asking my seat mate to get out of his seat.

The literature pocket contents: safety card, air sickness bag, and low quality headphones.

On the right is the seat controls with fully adjustable leg rest. The tray table deploys from under the arm rest.

The other side has a flap that flips up to reveal the IFE remote, and the IFE screen is stored underneath.

There is a universal outlet (110V) under the right arm rest.

Under the center console is the head phone jacks and a USB-A port.

After the cabin settled in, the FA came through to offer the standard choice of non-alcoholic drinks on TK. I took a mint lemonade.

He then came through and handed out menus. The options on this flight looked a lot better than on my previous flight and all three sounded good, but I would opt for the lighter pasta dish over the lamb shank for a such a late meal.

As we prepared for pushback, the overhead monitors played the safety video.

We finally pushed back at 21:00 with a LH A321 next door. The windows were really scratched up on this 10+ year old plane so all the lights outside had this firework effect.

After a decent taxi, we take off on Runway 35R at 22:13.

Our route out of IST.

During the flight, the overhead monitors played the moving map.

Meal service quickly started after leveling off with the distribution of hot oshibori. Our very good FA then returned to take meal and drink orders.

My tray as received along with a glass of champagne.

The starter: Buffalo Mozzarella with Grilled Mediterranean Vegetables.

Along the back we have a cheese board (left), marinated artichokes in olive oil (center), and dark and light chocolate trifle (right).

The FA also came back and offered breads from a basket, but I declined. He offered them to the cabin 3 times during the meal service despite it being a full cabin.

After I finished my starter, he took away the plate and brought out my main.

Homemade Artichoke Mezzelune with Artichokes, Cherry Tomatoes, and Light Panna Sauce.

A view of the cabin as the meal service ends.

The IFE screen is your standard Y size and not as responsive to touch, but better than any other European competitor offers in their narrow-body short-haul fleet. The content is slightly abbreviated relative to the long-haul IFE, but still substantial.

In addition, TK offers 1GB of complimentary Wi-Fi to business class passengers.

It is easy to connect to and was a very fast/reliable signal throughout the flight.

After the meal, I asked for a cup of coffee, which was promptly brought out.

Another hot oshibori was handed out to close out the service.

Later he brought me a bag of hazelnuts and refilled my coffee seeing that I was one of the few passengers not sleeping.

Before landing, I used the lavatory, which was moderately clean and contained Molton Brown products.

We started our descent after crossing into Veneto.

Our approach into Malpensa along the Italian Alps.

It was heavy fog so not much to see until we touched down at 23:39, slightly ahead of schedule.

The misty rain made any view out the window impossible, but eventually we made it to the gate.

After deplaning, it was a long quiet walk to immigration.

Immigration was empty and was through to the baggage claim quickly. Priorities were respected and my bag was one of the first off.

Given the late arrival into MXP, I headed over to the Sheraton Milan Malpensa Airport Hotel, which is conveniently located in T1. At this hour, the trains are already stopped, so you are pretty much left to take a taxi otherwise. The hotel is expensive, but is extremely convenient since located in the terminal and just 50 steps from the train station in T1.

Sheraton Milan Malpensa Airport Hotel

The hotel's entrance is across from the train station.

The rooms look to be recently renovated (had USB-C outlets throughout) and were good for a short one-night stay before heading out on the train the next morning.

I'll leave of this series here as I start my stay in Lombardy. Thanks for stopping by!

Flight Details

Turkish Airlines, TK1877
Equipment: Airbus A321-200 [TC-JSI “Tunceli”, delivered May 2013]
Departure: 21:50 (ATD: 22:13)
Arrival: 23:45 (ATA: 23:39)
Flight time: 2:26