Flight Review: Turkish Airlines Economy Class Airbus A321neo
Flight#: TK1853
From: Istanbul (IST)
To: Barcelona (BCN)
Flight time: 3h 35min
Aircraft: Airbus A321neo
This is going to be a short one, since I’ve reviewed the Turkish Airlines inflight experience extensively on A330-300 (business and economy class), B777-300ER, B787-9, and B737-800.
So, today is the turn of that other workhorse of Turkish Airlines’ fleet, the A321neo. The airline operates as well the older “ceo” version, but the differences from the point of view of the passenger are not huge, so I will focus on this particular flight on an A321neo between Istanbul and Barcelona, to give you a feel of how the product is like.
The Cabin
What you noticed when coming onboard one of Turkish Airlines A321neos is how new it looks. The seats have a very sleek, modern look (and come emblazoned with the Turkish Airlines logo!) with the black leather surfaces and the enveloping “ear” headrests.
A look at the seat pitch and the literature pocket at the bottom of the seat.
Notice also show Turkish Airlines has fitted all economy class seats on its narrow-body fleet with seat back screens and access to the same inflight entertainment system than the long-haul, wide-body fleet. I think it is one of the few major European airlines to do so nowadays!
A couple of additional small details: the suit hanger, conveniently located on the side, and the USB port (plus the port for the IFE headphones)
Here’s a general view of the cabin. Turkish Airlines was, in fact, the first airline to install the Airbus Cabin Flex configuration on its A321neo fleet. This is a configuration that Airbus came up with by which one of the doors forward of the wing goes away and is replaced by two overwing emergency exits, as a result of this re-engineering of the cabin, more space becomes available for seats (up to 240, compared to 220 passengers previously). Turkish Airlines, however, operates the A321neo with two classes (business and economy) and only 182 seats (20 in business and 162 in economy), which results in more space for passengers anyway!
Food, drink and amenities
This was a morning flight, so we were served breakfast, and a rather substantious one at that!
Once more, Turkish Airlines offers in economy the type of food that on other airlines you may expect on business class only.
In addition to the IFE system, this A321neo was also equipped with inflight wifi (economy class passengers must purchase a data plan, though).
Our Take
Great product for a narrow-body aircraft, with many of the features that you would normally expect to find on long-haul, wide-body aircraft!