What is it like to fly Turkish Airlines on Copenhagen – Istanbul route with Airbus A321
A while ago I had to do a trip between Bucharest and Copenhagen and return on the same day. Unfortunately, flights from Bucharest to the Danish capital are pretty scarce during low-season, especially if you need to return in the same day, and if for the outbound leg I had the Blue Air flight..for the return flight I had to take a flight with a layover in Istanbul. Thus, my first two flights with Turkish.
After that, I pretty much understood why all my friends where choosing Turkish Airlines even if some of their flights were sometimes more expensive than other European carriers.
For this particular flight, a one-way ticket can be as low as 139 EUR and the services are pretty good – especially the catering. You can note that in the price you also have included one free checked luggage, which is something worth to be added since most of the European legacy carriers are cutting down baggage allowance. Being a one day trip, I didn’t had any checked luggage so I simply check-in online and proceeded to the gates.
Boarding and everything was on time, however when departing from Copenhagen Kastrup Airport you should note that the flight departs from the C gates – the non-Schengen destinations, so this adds some time when you go to the passport verification gate.
The flight from Copenhagen to Istanbul has a length of about 3 hours and you fly usually over Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria.
Flight operated with Airbus A321 plane
Turkish Airlines uses for this flight usually Airbus A321 or A320 planes. In our case for this CPH – IST TK1786 flight, it was an Airbus A321 with the registration number TC-JTH. The plane was fairly new and it felt new, not a surprise as the plane was rolled out on the production lane just in 2016.
The Airbus A321 that operated this flight has a configuration with 178 seats, the space between the seat pitch being good in the economy class. Low-cost carriers like Wizz Air are operating this kind of planes in a configuration with up to 230 seats.
However, this Turkish Airlines Airbus A321 has a configuration with 20 business class recliner seats with a 2-2 configuration and 158 standard economy class seats with a pitch of up to 32 inches in a 3-3 configuration. Even if the width at 17.2 inches is a bit small, for a 3-hour flight it was decent enough.
Worth adding that the seats recline quite a lot.
Good in-flight entertainment system with lots of new releases and also with USB port
The in-flight entertainment system was really good, filled with lots of new movies. However being a short flight I preferred pretty much to enjoy the moving map.
The best part was the USB port that was on the IFE, after a full day in CPH I had finally the opportunity to properly charge my devices.
The flights were operated with the same plane, it was a bit of a surprise for me that when I get down on the jetbridge at the same gate was scheduled in about an hour the departure to Bucharest. One of the flight attendants was the same also on Copenhagen – Istanbul and then on Istanbul – Bucharest.
Excellent catering – I chose the kebab meatballs
The catering on this flight was excellent and was one of the highlights. I asked the kebab meatballs, although there was also a vegetarian option.
Also, for the beverages, I opted for a red wine. It was an Ancyra dry wine, never heard of it but was really good. Would buy it if I would see it in one of the duty-frees.
I really think that the catering and the service are one of the main highlights of this particular flight. Also, the IFE is good.