Airline: Turkish Airlines
Flight #: TK1971
Route: IST-LHR
Class: Economy
Seat: 51K
Date: Sunday 11th January 2026
My arrival into Istanbul on a Turkish Airlines flight from Chișinău (read about that here) marked the start of the final leg of my Meander to Moldova trip, with just the flight from Istanbul to Heathrow ahead of me. Turkish Airlines operate a number of daily flights between their Istanbul hub and London’s Heathrow airport using either narrowbody Airbus A321s or a mix of widebody aircraft. Whilst I could have taken a slightly earlier flight and gotten home sooner, I of course had to try out one of Turkish’s widebody aircraft and so booked myself on TK1971 which was advertised as being operated by one of their newest aircraft, an Airbus A350-900.
One very good thing about Turkish’s IFE system is you’re able to see the gate of connecting flights when arriving into Istanbul and so having eventually had the bus drop us off by E2, I knew I needed to make my way to D7. Arriving at the transfer security at 1327, it took about 10 minutes to get through, having done my good deed by letting someone with an earlier connection ahead of me, and it was then another 10 minutes or so walk to reach gate D7. At the gate there were additional checks taking place and after three different people checked my passport and boarding pass, I seemingly passed whatever test was in place as I didn’t have to have the additional hand luggage search. In the end I was glad that I had chosen this slightly later flight as I only ended up with around 30 minutes to relax before boarding started at 1425.
Turkish Airlines boarding system was via seat row instead of boarding group, except for Business Class and so, with my seat being in the last few rows of the aircraft, I was one of the first Economy passengers to board. As we boarded, I discovered that instead of the advertised Airbus A350-900, we were instead flying on a Boeing 777-300ER which was a bit of a disappointment, but it was still a widebody, nonetheless. Onboard the economy cabin was laid out in a 3-3-3 configuration apart from the last three rows which were 2-3-2 due to the tapering of the fuselage. My seat, 51K, was the window seat on the right-hand side of the aircraft, in the first of the 2-3-2 rows. I was onboard and settled within about 10 minutes of boarding starting and was pleased with my seat choice as the window seats in the last three rows have a bit of extra space between them and the window, giving me a bit more room for the four-hour flight.
The aircraft operating my flight back to the UK was TC-JJM, an almost 15-year-old Boeing 777-300ER delivered to Turkish in March 2011. It had arrived in Istanbul around 10 hours earlier on a flight from Ho Chi Minh City and had spent the day on the ground before being prepped for our flight to London. Onboard there was some nice music playing whilst boarding and all the seats had a decent IFE system, although it was showing its age with ethernet ports, a lagging touchscreen and a clunky handheld remote. I had thought I had gotten lucky as boarding had pretty much finished with the seat next to me still empty, however my hopes were dashed when at the last minute I gained a seat mate. Boarding was announced as complete at 1505, some 40 minutes after it started, but there was still the usual issues fitting all the hand luggage into the overhead lockers and as the cabin doors were closed, luggage was still being loaded into the belly of the aircraft as well.
As I waited for pushback, I was able to see we had two Airbus A321neos parked to the right of us, TC-LSP which departed to Birmingham whilst we waited, and TC-LSB which was waiting to depart to Valencia. After TC-LSP departed, its spot was filled by TC-JHK, a Boeing 737-800 which arrived from the Turkish capital, Ankara. After getting a bit of plane spotting in, we pushed back at 1514, and began our taxi, taking off from runway 36 just under a quarter of an hour later at 1528. Onboard I had the option of paying 15USD for WiFi throughout the flight, but as Miles&Smiles member I was able to get free messaging so just stuck with that and the IFE to occupy me as we began our journey north-west.
Around an hour into the flight the onboard service started with everyone being given warm towels, before the dinner service began. Unfortunately, I didn’t take note of the options, but I chose the Beef which turned out to be a curry with rice, accompanied by some tzatziki and finished off with a piece of chocolate cake. It was all pretty nice, although obviously in economy presentation isn’t a priority, and it was certainly a bonus to get a meal given most European carriers wouldn’t have provided one for a four-hour flight. By the time dinner had finished and the trays collected we were overhead Austria and so I settled down to play games on the IFE until we got closer to the UK.
As we headed over central Germany, on a line that took us over Nurenburg and Frankfurt, we experienced a bit of turbulence and just after Frankfurt a bank of cloud began to cover everything for the remainder of the flight. Around three hours into the flight the captain made an announcement that we were at the top of our decent from 36,000feet and had just entered UK airspace, with an ETA of 1555 local time. Unfortunately, this early arrival vanished as we reached 18,000feet and got put in the North Weald hold with our ETA being pushed back until 1615 as we circled over Essex. After a bit of a wait, we descended through 10,000 feet around 1555 and I was hoping that we would soon get through the bottom of the clouds to give me a view of London as we approached. As it turned out we didn’t descend through the clouds until we were over Hounslow and touched down on Heathrow’s runway 27R a few moments later at 1611, one minute late.
Our taxi to stand 238 at Terminal 2B didn’t take long and we parked at 1620, although it then took around 15 minutes for me to get off the aircraft from the rear few rows. I was at passport control at 1644 and wasn’t delayed at all, reaching baggage claim at 1648 where I then had to wait almost 40 minutes for my bag to arrive! All in all though this flight with Turkish Airlines was a great way to end the trip, with a relatively comfortable seat, tasty food and friendly staff. Istanbul seemed well set up for transfers, with that process going smoothly and to be honest, the only negative part of the flight was the wait for the bags at Heathrow. I’d certainly fly with Turkish Airlines again if the location of their hub worked for where I was visiting.
Lounge 0*
Seat/Facilities 4*
Food 4*
Service 5*
Punctuality 5*
Overall Rating 18/25 (read about my rating system here!)
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