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Travel Hell / Airlines / Airline News / Turkish Airlines / → All Tags

How an Incorrect Airport Code Sent Travelers 7,000 Miles in the Wrong Direction

We’ve joked before about heading to Toledo instead of Tahiti, but apparently a similar travel snafu just happened to a couple who ended up far from their true destination.

The original plan had the couple leaving from Los Angeles with plans to check out Dakar over in Senegal. However, a little bit of an error had them headed elsewhere. Their Turkish Airlines tickets were supposed to send them to DKR—that’s Dakar—but thanks to a little bit of a spelling error they were headed to DAC—that’s the Dhaka region and Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport way over in Bangladesh.

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Turkish Airlines / Airlines / Airline News / Booze Travel / → All Tags

First Lipstick and Now Booze, As Turkish Airlines Considers Yet Another Ban

Just the other day we heard about Turkish Airlines and their problem with red lipstick, and now it looks like the carrier is getting ready to ban even more in-flight stuff. Apparently the airline is not too keen on serving alcohol to Russian passengers, because apparently they’re a little too thirsty when it comes to up in the air beverage consumption.

The news is trickling out from a couple of sources, as the reports appear to have started over in Russia. If things are true the carrier would move to stop serving alcoholic beverages on flights to and from Russia, as Turkish Airlines isn’t really up for dealing with potentially unruly passengers.

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Flight Attendants / Turkish Airlines / Virgin Atlantic / → All Tags

One Airline May Ban Flight Attendants from Wearing Red Lipstick

An airline famous for its red pout is Virgin Atlantic

While rumors of new Turkish Airlines uniforms are on everyone's lips lately, there's one thing supposedly being banned from lips completely: red lipstick on Turkish Airlines flight attendants.

According to BIANET, the new beauty policy on Turkish will forbid "the usage of red lipstick and hair buns for women flight attendants." The article also notes a 2012 revision to the dress code that banned "the use of red-bleached hair, platinum blonde style, and flamboyant silver make-up for female flight attendants."

Turkish is already getting flak for being restrictive, after an image leaked of what's supposedly their new uniforms. The wardrobe is not only conservative with respect to Muslim beliefs, but the style and colors look more early 1970s than early 2010s.

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Videos / Languages / Turkish Airlines / → All Tags

Watch Travelers Try to Pronounce Ultra-Difficult City Names

"Hard to say, easy to fly." That's the title of a rather clever little video from the folks at Turkish Airlines.

All around Istanbul, Turkish Airlines has found people willing to give it a go at the pronunciations of Turkish Airlines' more exotic destinations, like Guangzhou, in China.

The video is a bit like Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" segments where the audience laughs at the cluelessness of the average person, when, most likely, they themselves also have no idea. We even admit to having no idea how to go about voicing a few of these cities. As one can imagine, it helps if you've been there (the case for Ljubljana, Leipzig & Guangzhou for us).

You know who would definitely have to know how to pronounce all of these city names? The people at Istanbul Airport, who announce airline departures to them!

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Om Nom Nom / Amazing Airline Meals / Airline Meals / In-Flight Meals / Food Travel / Turkish Airlines / IST / Economy Class Travel / → All Tags

Surprisingly Yummy Airline Meals: The Halal Chicken on Turkish Airlines

We have all had a terrible meal on a flight before. In fact, we have shown you some of the sadder trays slid in front of us. With this new series of amazing airline meals, we can revel in the airline culinary delights and give kudos to the airlines that got it right.

While it's extremely rare to find an airline with as large a variety of vegetarian meal options as Turkish Airlines, we already opined on this at length last month. Now let's get to the meat of the matter, literally.

All meat served on Turkish Airlines is halal, so clicking the box to request the "Moslem Meal" is redundant. As we recently discovered, even flights as short as our 4-hour trip from Madrid to Istanbul (on a brand new 737-800 with Boeing Sky Interior!) see passengers presented with printed menus and entree choices (even in Economy, where we were).

Our choice on TK 1858: Grilled Chicken Medallions with mustard curry butter, ratatouille, tomato rice, french green beans in olive oil, and plum cake. (The other option was "Tas Kebab," or traditional beef stew in tomato sauce).

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In-Flight Meals / Airplane Food / Turkish Airlines / IST / Istanbul Travel / Turkey Travel / Airlines / → All Tags

One Airline Offers Seven Different Vegetarian In-Flight Meals

18. Eighteen. That's how many specialty meal types an international airline offers, on average.

21. Twenty-one. That's how many you'll find in the drop-down meal options when you book on Turkish Airlines. That's quite a feat, considering how complicated it already is for catering to stock an airplane with meals for several classes of service, then to throw special dietary requests into the mix.

We actually ordered a Moslem meal for our recent flight to Istanbul, but come to find out that all standard meals served on Turkish Airlines fall into this category, as the meat is halal and all ingredients are "in accord with Islamic religious beliefs." Next time we're definitely going for a vegetarian meal, because that's where things get crazy. Turkish Airlines has no fewer than seven different vegetarian meals! Check 'em out:

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New Routes / Airlines / Airline News / Hawaiian Airlines / Turkish Airlines / Ethiopian Airlines / Delta / United / → All Tags

It's United, Turkish Airlines and Ethiopian Leading This Week's New Route News

Sometimes it’s hard to stay on top of all the new route announcements that come our way, so we’ve complied a little bit of a rundown below. As long as you can afford the fares, this should definitely help add to your passport stamp collection.

· United:
At this point you’re probably well aware of some of the issues that the Boeing 787 has been experiencing. As a result, new flights, new routes, and other in-flight improvements have been delayed. Now it looks like United is grounding its planes to at least June, but there’s one route that is suffering a little bit less.

Assuming they fix those pesky batteries sooner rather than later, it sounds like the nonstop option between Denver and Tokyo will takeoff on May 12. Initially it was scheduled to start doing its thing at the end of March, but we’ll keep our fingers crossed that May is when it finally hits the skies.

· Delta:
For travelers looking to hit in big during North Dakota’s oil boom, Delta has you covered as they’re getting ready to boost their service over to the Roughrider State. Tickets are scheduled to go on sale tomorrow. Delta is planning to fly nonstop between Minneapolis-St. Paul and Dickinson.

The flights will begin on June 10, and they’ll do their thing two times per day. Sure there’s money to be made in western North Dakota, but just don’t expect anything too comfortable on these flights. The back and forth flying will be done thanks to SkyWest and some less than comfy commuter jets.

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Turkish Airlines / Turkey Travel / Airlines / Airline News / Design Travel / Flight Attendants / Airline Uniforms / In-Flight Fashion / → All Tags

Turkish Airlines' New Flight Attendant Uniforms are the Opposite of Scandalous

There was a little bit of news out of the Turkish Airlines camp over the weekend, and it wasn’t exactly positive. Apparently a sneak peek of their new cabin crew uniforms was leaked out across the interwebs, and let’s just say the feedback was a little less than positive.

It doesn’t appear that Turkish Airlines has officially confirmed that this is the direction that they’re going in with their new uniforms, but if they listen to the masses they might want to throw these new uniforms in the trash and start over. Things on Twitter have kind of calmed down, but every once in a while you can still catch someone comparing these new uniforms with those from the 1960s.

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Valentine's Day Travel / Airline News / Turkish Airlines / JFK / IST / → All Tags

Leave the Valentine's Day Box of Chocolates to Turkish Airlines

If you’re still not sure what you’re doing with your sweetie on Valentine’s Day—don’t worry—there’s still time to think of something good. Sure there are the usual standbys like flowers, chocolates, and a nice dinner; however, you know we just have to suggest something travel related. That’s why we say cut out of work for the weekend—or week—and head over to Istanbul thanks to Turkish Airlines.

The airline is offering up some special deals on their nonstop options between New York-JFK and Istanbul in and around Valentine’s Day, so you’re free to plan your own romantic getaway between February 8 and February 17. Round-trip flights can be yours for as little as $451 per person. That’s a little more money than a bouquet of roses from Whole Foods, but we say your loved one is more than worth it.

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Three Cheers for In-flight Ice Cream

We’ve known that Kobe Bryant has been doing his best to sell the services offered of by Turkish Airlines for a little bit, and we guess the airline has been happy with their investment. Well now they’re tapping their talent pool once again, and this time Kobe is teaming up with famous footballer Leo Messi for a new commercial.

You can check it out above for yourself—it’s worth a chuckle—but basically Turkish Airlines is showing off their great service. However, they’re doing it with ice cream.

A kid sees the athletes on board and immediately wants an autograph, and both Kobe and Leo are offering up tricks to outdo one another in order to gain the kid’s attention. However, balloon animals, card castles, and of course some sports skills are no match for the flight attendant. Once she walks down the aisle equipped with ice cream it’s all over, and the autograph session ends before it begins.

[Video: Turkish Airlines]

New Routes / Airlines / Airline News / United / Interjet / Turkish Airlines / Delta / Volaris / → All Tags

It's Interjet, Turkish Airlines and Delta Leading This Week's New Route News

Sometimes it’s hard to stay on top of all the new route announcements that come our way, so we’ve complied a little bit of a rundown below. As long as you can afford the fares, this should definitely help add to your passport stamp collection.

· Turkish Airlines:
Just like everyone else we’d love to spend a few days—or a few months—over in the Maldives, but getting there isn’t exactly as easy as hopping aboard a ferry. There are plenty of flights to reach the island destination, but a new option from Turkish Airlines might just make it a little bit more accessible.

Beginning on November 24, the airline will start nonstop flights between Istanbul and Male. The flights will run five times per week, and all the flying fun will be completed thanks to the carrier’s fleet of Airbus A330s. Tickets haven’t gone on sale as of yet, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see the fares loaded into the system within the next few days or weeks. If money is an issue—no problem—just keep saving those frequent flyer miles, as Turkish Airlines is a member of Star Alliance.

· Delta:
It’s been a little bit of time since Delta announced their big expansion plans for New York-LaGuardia, but recently they kind of completed the launch of some of their newest flights to and form the Big Apple. The flights are a mix between mainline Delta jets and some regional carriers, but anyway look slice it you’ll get to where you need to go. Some of the most recently added options include spots like Charlotte, Cleveland, Denver, Charlottesville, Houston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, as well as Halifax, Ottawa, and Montreal.

All in all, Delta is planning to spend a cool $160 million—give or take a couple bucks—on upgrades and improvements over at LaGuardia. That means your time on the ground might just be a little less crummy and a little more pleasant, especially with a visit to the beer garden.

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New Routes / Airlines / Airline News / Alaska Airlines / Frontier / Turkish Airlines / Allegiant Air / → All Tags

Alaska Airlines and Turkish Airlines Lead This Week's New Route News

Sometimes it’s hard to stay on top of all the new route announcements that come our way, so we’ve complied a little bit of a rundown below. As long as you can afford the fares, this should definitely help add to your passport stamp collection.

· Alaska Airlines:
We can’t guarantee a fare war from Washington over to Maui, but with a couple of airlines planning service in the near future it’s definitely a possibility. Alaska Airlines is planning to send plenty of planes and people between Bellingham, Washington and Kahului, Hawaii starting at the beginning of November. It’s going to be just seasonal service, as the flights are scheduled to run four times per week through April 14. Alaska Airlines’ flights are set to start flying about a week before the competition from Allegiant Air begins. If you choose to go with Alaska Airlines be sure to book sooner than later, as right now they’re offering up introductory one-way fares starting from $179.

· Allegiant Air:
South Bend, Indiana is getting another affordable flight option thanks to Allegiant Air, as the carrier is looking to add a fifth nonstop flight to and from the city. This time it looks like Punta Gorda, Florida will be the latest option, as Allegiant adds to its route network. They’ve already been flying to spots in Florida as well as Las Vegas and Phoenix. Of course when flying with Allegiant you’ll need to be mindful of their tendency to tack on additional fees, charges, and other costly tidbits. However, with one-way flights starting at $95 it’s probably worth taking a chance with Allegiant.

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