Revealed earlier this year, new Turkish Airlines’ business class seats are definitely going to be a nice upgrade over the current business class! Turkish Airlines is already my favorite business class carrier (for award flights) for many reasons but these new seats are definitely going to make it an even better product.
The First Scheduled US Flight for Turkish Airlines’ New Business Class Cabin
When and Where for Turkish Airlines New Business Class Cabin?
August 8th is the first US scheduled flight for Turkish Airlines new business class
While the schedule could change, Turkish Airlines has loaded their first Boeing 787 aircraft with the new business class seats into their schedule. While there had been some word that the Istanbul – Atlanta route would be the first to get the new aircraft (current Turkish planes will not be receiving the new cabins but will be retrofitted with a different upgrade instead). It appears that it will not be Atlanta but Washington-Dulles that will get the first Boeing 787-9 Turkish plane.
Again, this schedule and aircraft assignment could change before the actual flight, but as of this post writing (April 28), the first Turkish Airlines’ 787 flight from Istanbul to the US will be on August 8th and will be from Istanbul to Washington-Dulles, flight TK 7.
At this time, there is zero award availability on that flight or any of the other flights after that date for the month of August. Business class award availability with Turkish is funny sometimes – there are times that there are big dumps of award seats on multiple routes and then just absolutely nothing.
The Boeing 787-9 will be replacing the Airbus A330 on the Washington route. You can see the difference in the seat maps below. The new Turkish Airlines business class will not be coming to the JFK route until 2020, which is kind of a shame.
That is the route I fly them the most so I was hoping that would come earlier. However, I may have a shot at trying the new business class cabin this year so will be doing a review if that happens!
The new Turkish Airlines 787-9 business class will have 30 seats
The A330 that the 787-9 will be replacing on the IST-IAD route has 28 seats
Atlanta will be getting the new 787-9 aircraft and the new business class, starting September 10th.
Was looking to book summer travel and I do recall seeing the 789 on a 25th Aug JFK-IST flight at 12:10am. Would not be shocked if they end up swapping it out though.
Nice catch! I just looked and saw it also! That is strange and I doubt it stays there but maybe they are having some special trial run for it?
Missing TK’s new aircraft by a mere 3 weeks!!
Aw, that’s a shame! I am desperately trying to get it to work for me on the IAD route but the only three days I can pick from are at huge prices!
That configuration looks an awful lot like what I see from DPS to IST this fall.
Yes, that is one of the first routes that is getting the new planes!
I wonder if they will put it on the IAH-IST route or is that too long a flight? That is one of my favorite ways to get to that region.
I seriously doubt they will go with it on the IAH route, mostly due to the fact that this route seems to get their older planes anyway. The JFK, LAX, and IAD markets have to be bigger for them (also, IAH-IST typically has award space more than other routes so they don’t seem to hold back as much award space on that route).
I am a bit surprised about ATL but maybe that is more to test it out?
We are flying MEX-IST business on the 1st scheduled flight Aug 26. They actually had posted a couple of weeks worth of flights earlier than this date (3 flight per week w/as top in Cancun to refuel) but have pulled them since, so I hope this date holds, otherwise we could be in for an horrific schedule change bumped back in coach on another partner airline . There used to be a lot of award seats (using United miles) when they first posted the schedule but now only some dates that are showing availability. Does anybody know which middle row seats are the married seats? And which Window seats have the larger armrest closets to the aisle?
Wow, good luck and congrats on that flight! I am not sure if anyone knows which seats are which quite yet, except for what the seat map shows. More information will probably be coming in the next couple of weeks.
As for the award seats, Turkish dumps a bunch every so often and then it is really dried up. They did dump some recently for some US cities so you could check again now.