We flew Turkish from San Francisco to Karachi via Istanbul back in September. We used Chase points to purchase directly on the Chase travel site — cheaper than transferring points to (say) United and booking with MileagePlus. The ticket was just over $900, which included a stopover in Istanbul on the way back.
I’ve covered Turkish before, so I’ll only highlight the things that stood out.
Infotainment
They have forward and downward cameras, which come in handy when you’re looking for dawn, sunrise, etc. And their navigation explicitly provides Qibla direction and the upcoming prayer time. This is great — except it’s for your current location, not where you’ll be when dawn actually breaks, so it doesn’t account for time compression flying eastward. But then I haven’t seen any infotainment provide that, so this is state of the art.
Food
Turkish still has a strictly halal menu, and their food is decent — even in economy.
Place for prayers
There’s a decent “aisle” in the rear galley, and if the staff is accommodating, they’ll let you use it for prayers (meaning they leave). Neat.
Note: since publishing this review on the old ReviewSity site, I thought about the “determine prayer times during flight” problem some more, here are my thoughts: Figuring out fajr at 39,000 feet — and the app that now does it for you
Originally posted on the old ReviewSity, November 2022.