This business class flight between Istanbul and Oslo confirms the excellent performance of Turkish Airlines’ medium-haul product.

After a 4-hour overnight connection in Istanbul, which gave me the chance to try out both the IGA lounge and the Turkish Airlines Business lounge, it was time for me to take off for Oslo in an A321Neo equipped with the airline’s new medium-haul business cabins.

For the record the air routing of this trip.

You’ll find a summary of articles about this vacation in Vietnam at the bottom of the page.

Ground experience

A few minutes before boarding time I check my gate on the screen in the lounge.

Good news: for once, my gate is only 8 minutes from the lounge.

A bit of walking, an escalator down and I’m at my gate.

There are already a few people at the gate and boarding is about to begin.

Boarding

Queues are set up and passengers settle in. We stand still for a while while the agents check the passports of the passengers in the queue one by one. A few will be invited to the counter for a thorough check before boarding.

We will eventually be released, priority lane first.

The cabin

I’m back in the new cabin that has been equipping Turkish Airlines’ A321 business class for several years now.

A recliner seat in a 2-2 configuration, which no airline in Europe offers on medium-haul routes.

The legroom is very comfortable.

The screen is a good size.

Mechanical seat controls.

A storage compartment in the armrest houses a power socket, USB port, remote control and noise-reduction headphones.

The table is a good size.

A lovely, comfortable cabin, even if I’m still a little nostalgic for the coziness of the old one, especially on 737s.

The flight and the service

As we board, we are brought a welcome drink.

Menus are handed out on the ground and orders taken before takeoff.

Boarding ends and we push off.

An opportunity to see a piece of the A350-900 livery to celebrate the 400th aircraft in the fleet.

At the rate they’re going, they’ll be releasing a lot of special liveries...

We take off and fly over the Black Sea before setting course for Oslo.

Service begins shortly afterwards. As always with Turkish Airlines on medium-haul routes, the service is in two shifts.

So we start with watermelon, Turkish cheese, marinated olives, homemade strawberry jam from Bodrum and country butter from Trabzon.

Although it’s breakfast time, I’ll be accompanying it with Turkish wine…after all, for my biological clock, it’s already early afternoon.

The combination of watermelon and cheese is surprisingly good, the olives are very good and the jam goes wonderfully with the cheese.

For the main course, I’ll have the farm eggs poached in shakshuka.

If the appearance is a little odd, it was downright delicious.

The cabin is very bright, and the weather outside is superb…

The batteries in my various devices are starting to run down, but fortunately I have my usual Anker multi-outlet charger…

Here I am, comfortably settled in for the end of the flight.

And now it’s time to start our descent.

Arrival and disembarkation

Strangely enough, the sky becomes overcast as we approach Norway.

We land and park next to an SAS A330, probably from New York Liberty (Newark).

A quick goodbye to our A321 before going through immigration control.

While most of the passengers will surprisingly head for the booths, I’ll be heading for the e-gates, which I’ll pass through 30 seconds later with no waiting whatsoever.

As on the outward journey, I found the wait at baggage claim a little long.

Once I’ve collected my suitcase, I’ll head for the city center, taking advantage of this stopover to see the sights before heading back to Paris. To do this, I’ll be taking the Flytoget, a high-speed train service between the airport and the center of Oslo (210 km/h). The only high-speed train in the country.
No waiting: I had bought my ticket online before leaving Saigon.

When you consider the size of Oslo and its airport, thinking that there’s a train every 10 minutes when you see the catastrophic RER B service to Roissy…. Anyway.

Very comfortable…

The journey takes 20 minutes (the airport is 50 km from the city center).

The crew

Very professional, friendly and efficient, many refills of wine and water during the flight.

Bottom line

Another solid performance on Turkish Airlines in business class, certainly the best medium-haul product in Europe.

The articles about this vacation in Vietnam

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