Flight Number TK837
Departure from Tel Aviv at 6:20 PM
Seat 3E
Turkish Airlines has several types of business class seats on its short and medium haul routes. These range from the standard intra-European style seats to their flagship lie flat seats which you can even find on some shorthaul routes like Istanbul to Tel Aviv.
Today I tried out Turkish Airlines’ recliner business class which they have installed on some A321 and 737 aircraft. While not as exciting as the A330 or 777 business class with fully flat seats, I was interested to see what the experience was like.
Cabin and Seat
The Turkish Airlines A321 business class cabin was laid out in a 2 – 2 configuration, with 4 rows of seats for a total of 16 business class seats. For a narrow body plane, this is among the nicer business class cabins with black leather seats and the Turkish Airlines logo at the back of the cabin.
Each seat has a nice amount of legroom, recline, and is sufficiently wide to get comfortable.
Just below my right armrest were the manual seat controls. I don’t love manual controls, but these worked just fine.
The middle console between the two seats houses the IFE screen, remote control, a small tray for your drink, as well as the headphone jack and power ports.
Aside from the seatback pocket, these seats provide no additional storage.
While not the newest seats, these are pretty standard regional business class seats, similar to what you would find on most narrowbody aircraft outside of Europe.
Food and Drinks
Turkish Airlines offers their signature juices to business class passengers on all flights.
Honestly, I’m not a fan and would much rather have a glass of champagne, but I went for a glass of lemonade which was fine.
The crew also distributed small bags of hazelnuts along with the menus.
We were served a full dinner on this two hour evening flight. The menu read as follows:
Shortly after takeoff, the tables were set with a cool gray tablecloth and the meals were served all on a single tray.
I had the lamb which was delicious and juicy along with some warm bread, appetizers, cheese and white chocolate mouse for dessert.
I was really impressed by the quantity and quality of food on a short flight like this. So much better than the food I was served in business class on one of the morning flights from Tel Aviv to Istanbul!
Amenities
As you might expect, Turkish Airlines does not offer much in terms of amenities on this short flight. This flight however did have overhead screens which displayed the flight map throughout the flight, as well as personal screens at each seat.
The personal screens were quite old, and I had issues with my remote as well as getting clear audio. The way the screens are installed, it’s not possible to watch anything if you plan on using the tray table to eat which was a bit annoying.
Turkish Airlines offered blankets as well which seemed to be the same ones offered to economy class. I was not offered a pillow, but I assume I would have gotten one should I have asked.
No slippers or amenity kits were provided.
Bottom Line
Turkish Airlines offers several daily flights between Tel Aviv and Istanbul with many different types of business class seats. If possible, I would of course recommend booking a flight operated by the A330 or 777 with lie flat seats, however these seats were fine as well for a two hour flight. I would however, try to avoid the planes which offer business class which is really just the front of economy class with a blocked middle seat.
See how the experience compared on Turkish Airlines’ A330 business class on a morning flight from Tel Aviv to Istanbul here.