SWISS

Recently travelled on Qantas first class Sydney to Singapore, BA first class Singapore to London and return, Qantas business class Singapore to Sydney. Qantas first was great, bed is the best on the sky, service excellent, food good, lounge very good! BA first was comfortable; lounge in London excellent, lounge in Singapore good, food not great, service good; Plane was well fitted. Qantas Bus was very good as usual.

We flew Turkish and Thai, and had no problems at all, they were on time and all went smoothly.

1. Whilst Turkish Airlines and Thai Airways business class provided flat beds, good food and service – they do not compare with business class on Qatar Airways.
2. The Turkish Airlines business class pods are spacious but lack some design thought – they are not cosy, do not provide any privacy and are comfortable whilst sleeping (flat bed) but not when sitting and using the entertainment screen.
3. The Thai Airways business class pods are smaller than the Turkish Airline pods and whilst they provided more privacy and seemed cosier they do not provide the same space.   They are also on a weird angle (not aligned straight to the front) and it left me feeling a little disorientated.    The flat bed was also quite hard and not very comfortable for side sleepers.
4. The food was quite good on both airlines.
5. The onboarding was also quite good on both airlines – though Turkish Airlines at times felt disorganised.
6. The service on both airlines was good – if I had to choose I would say Thai Airways was friendlier.
7. The Turkish Airlines lounge in Istanbul was fantastic as was also the Thai Airways lounge in Bangkok – the other lounges used were also good.
8. I am glad we got to visit Istanbul – which is an amazing place to see but the hotel, The Polat, is not in a great location for a short stay – it was a good 20-30 minutes in a taxi to the old town, 40 -60 minutes to the airport and 40-60 minutes to the Asian side – all dependent on traffic which to me seemed horrific most of the time.   Lovely hotel but I would have much preferred to have stayed in the old town or closer to it.

The places we visited in Italy were beautiful, good food and loved the culture.   I don’t know however that I would travel to Europe again in July/August - the heat and humidity was unrelenting and it had an impact on us – it certainly slowed us down.