Turkish Airlines prides itself on flying to more countries than any other airline. In fact, the Star Alliance member recently added service to its sixth continent with the launch of flights from Istanbul to Melbourne. These flights are currently via Singapore, on board an Airbus A350-900.

Turkish Airlines happens to be one of my top five favourite airlines. I’ve generally found the onboard service – especially the food – to be top-notch. So, the launch of flights to Australia is an exciting development.

I haven’t yet had a chance to fly Turkish Airlines out of Melbourne. But I did recently get the chance to review the Turkish Airlines A350-900 Economy Class product on one of their other fifth-freedom routes, flying from Brazil to Argentina.

Flight Details

Flight number	TK15
Route	São Paulo (GRU) to Buenos Aires (EZE)
Aircraft type	Airbus A350-900
Class of travel	Economy
Seat number	29K
On-time performance	We arrived 15 minutes early
Star rating

The route

Flight Cost

I paid around AUD430 for a one-way Economy Semi-Flexible ticket.

Admittedly, I could have gotten a better deal by booking this as a return ticket or by redeeming frequent flyer points. But I only needed a one-way flight and I specifically wanted to buy a ticket, rather than using points, for reasons that will soon become obvious.

By the way, there happens to be a lot of international airlines offering fifth-freedom flights on the São Paulo-Buenos Aires route. There were also direct flights available with Star Alliance members Air Canada, Swiss and Ethiopian Airlines!

Airport Experience

TK15 originated in Istanbul. Many passengers disembarked in São Paulo, with only around 50 more joining for the relatively short onward journey to Buenos Aires. As such, there wasn’t much of a queue to check-in.

I noticed a sign on the check-in counter promoting the option to upgrade to Business Class for USD399 (~AUD618). Although I do love Turkish Airlines Business Class, I didn’t think it was worth it on this sector.

I recently leveraged my Qantas Platinum status to get a status match with Turkish Airlines. This was a fairly straightforward process, with Turkish Airlines quickly granting me four months of complimentary Elite status in their Miles&Smiles program. This is equivalent to Star Alliance Gold.

To extend this status for another eight months – bringing the duration to a full year – I just needed to take at least one Turkish Airlines international flight within those first four months. This flight from São Paulo to Buenos Aires would be exactly that.

One of the great things about Turkish Airlines’ status match is that you can enjoy the benefits straight away – including access to the priority check-in and boarding lanes at the airport.

I was also handed an invitation at check-in to use the Banco Safra Lounge. This is the same lounge used by the likes of Emirates, Swiss, Lufthansa, TAP Air Portugal and a host of other international airlines at Guarulhos International Airport. The lounge also accepts Priority Pass.

The lounge reminded me a bit of the nearby LATAM Lounge – or the Qantas Hong Kong Lounge – as it was an open-air lounge above the terminal. From the lounge, you could see and hear everything that was going on in the main terminal area.

This was a very nice lounge with plenty of seats, clean toilets and showers, and an impressively comprehensive buffet. The food selection included gnocchi, fish moqueca (a Brazilian-style stew), salads, sandwiches, Brazilian cheese bread, and more. It also had a fully stocked bar. My only criticism is that the Wi-Fi was a bit slow.

By the way, another way Australians can easily obtain Star Alliance Gold status – and enjoy benefits like lounge access when flying Turkish Airlines – is with the HSBC Star Alliance credit card. This card has no annual fee in the first year, and comes with at least a year of complimentary Star Alliance Gold status when you spend at least $4,000 on the card within the first 90 days!

As lounge access is not a standard inclusion with a Turkish Airlines Economy ticket, that isn’t a factor in my 5-star rating for the airport experience with this flight. But I’ve included this information as it may be of interest to some frequent flyers.

Even without lounge access and access to the priority queues, I could not fault the airport experience with Turkish Airlines in São Paulo, which was honestly great.

The new passengers joining TK15 boarded around 30 minutes before departure. Those continuing on from Istanbul were already on board as they did not leave the plane in São Paulo.

The Hard Product

Turkish Airlines uses the same 3-3-3 Economy seating layout on its Boeing 787s and Airbus A350s. The seats on both aircraft types are almost the same, but are slightly wider on the A350.

The plane operating this flight was a near-new Airbus A350-900. The modern cabin felt bright and inviting, with pleasant mood lighting.

Thanks to my Turkish Airlines Elite status, I could choose a seat for free at the time of booking. (Without any status, the fee would have been around AUD60 to select a standard seat.)

Turkish Airlines charges a premium to pre-select an exit row seat. But when I was choosing a seat, I noticed that the window seats in row 29 on the A350-900 didn’t have any seat in front of them. Despite this, they were still classified as standard seats. So I was able to choose seat 29K at no extra charge.

This turned out to be an excellent seat as there was practically unlimited legroom, and I could easily get out of my seat without disturbing any other passengers! The only downside was that the in-flight entertainment screen had to be folded away for take-off and landing.

I also reviewed the legroom in one of Turkish Airlines’ standard Airbus A350-900 seats – which still seemed pretty decent for Economy.

I found the Economy seats really comfortable, with a good amount of support. Each seat came with an adjustable headrest and a large, high-definition TV screen. There were also USB and USB-C charging outlets.

The in-flight entertainment system had lots of content, plus five live TV channels, including BBC World News, CNN and Sport 24. There were also a couple of external aircraft cameras that you could watch.

There was even an option to pair your own personal electronic device with the TV screen. However, you first needed to download the “Companion Entertainment” app.

Wi-Fi was available on this flight and seemed to work well. There were various internet passes available for purchase. For example, you could buy a chat pass for USD5 (~AU$8), 100MB of internet for USD8 (~AU$12) or a full-flight pass for USD15 (~AU$23).

Turkish Airlines offers free Wi-Fi packages to its own frequent flyers. All Miles&Smiles members can get a free chat pass, which enables the use of messaging apps like WhatsApp. Classic Plus members receive 250MB of internet, while Elite and Elite Pass members get 400MB.

The Soft Product

The cabin crew were all smiles as I boarded the flight. One of them asked where I was sitting and personally took me to my seat.

When I boarded there was a pillow, blanket and headphones waiting at my seat. Those are all fairly standard for a long-haul Economy flight… but I was shocked to also find a Mandarina Duck amenity kit!

I initially thought that this might have been placed on my seat by mistake, but no – it turns out that Turkish Airlines provides these rather nice amenity kits in Economy Class on its long-haul flights! (Business Class gets an even better kit.)

There’s a lot that I like about Turkish Airlines, but the thing I look forward to the most is the food. When flying to and from Istanbul, I’ve often been pleasantly surprised by both the amount and the quality of the food – even in Economy.

I think this is the first Turkish Airlines flight I’ve been on where the crew didn’t serve a hot meal. Instead, Economy passengers received a substantial chicken sandwich with lettuce and tomato. This was served with a chocolate muffin and a full choice of drinks from the trolley. And no, I didn’t get two red wines at the same time – one of those drinks is cherry juice 🙂

On one hand, I was slightly disappointed not to get a hot meal. Not because I needed one – I’d eaten well in the lounge – just because that’s what I’ve come to expect from Turkish Airlines. Nonetheless, the sandwich was fresh, tasty and totally adequate given the length of flight. Plus, this was infinitely better than what the local South American airlines serve on the same route!

My understanding is that the catering on this particular tag flight is a bit different to normal because it’s designed for the majority of passengers who boarded in Istanbul. They would have been well fed on the previous sector, before this flight took off at what would have been around 2 am Istanbul time.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.