Reader Doug asks why there’s no Coca-Cola in the Turkish Airlines business class or Miles & Smiles lounges in Istanbul? And some of you may not be aware of the reason either: it’s a political statement.
Sometime last year or the start of this year the Turkish Air lounge in Istanbul dropped all soda. It no longer provides coke or pepsi products. So now when I go through Istanbul I buy several before going to the lounge. And I choose other airlines, such as Austrian Air, for the Balkans and Middle East when possible. (The lounge also is usually overcrowded and lacks nearly enough outlets.)
Anyway, I’d love to know why they dropped soda. Was it a political gesture by Erdogan against the US? Or something else?
This was a decision taken back in November 2023.
Turkey’s parliament removed Coke and Nestle products from its restaurants “over their alleged support for Israel amid the conflict in Gaza” one month after the Hamas attack on October 7th. PepsiCo, SodaStream, McDonald’s, and Starbucks have also been targeted in Turkey.
Turkish Airlines followed suit in removing Coca-Cola products (including Fanta). Note though that despite some reports, this decision wasn’t implemented worldwide. You’ll find Coca-Cola products in the Washington Dulles Turkish Airlines lounge. And I’ve heard recent reports from passengers who have told me there have been Coke products on board.
Since the October 7 massacre by Hamas, non-stop flights between Israel and Turkey have been halted. Last month an El Al flight diverted there for a medical emergency and it was not permitted to refuel.
The Star Alliance carrier is over 49% owned by the government, is the national carrier, and operates in some measure as a state instrument.
Erdogan’s Turkey banned Instagram this month. They were upset about Instagram’s shadow-banning and editorializing away Turkish comments about the assassination in Iran of Hamas’ chief negotiator and political wing chief, and so Turkey threw every sort of criticism it could at Instagram including “think of the children” sexual exploitation stuff. Not that it amounts to much of a ban for Turks in Turkey — most of the heavy Instagram users would already be familiar with VPNs.
There is no Coca-Cola at some hotels in Sweden, and so some visiting acquaintance asked me if it was because the hotel was upset at the US over something and taking it out on Coke. No, they got a better deal from Pepsi’s salespeople.
Speaking of Coke, I remember when it was basically banned in some countries during part of the Cold War and the easiest place it could be gotten by me was from US embassies and consulates. Some of those places are now led by such major Netanyahu and Tr*mp kiss-ups that it would have been unimaginable when Señor Leff was flying around a bit as an unaccompanied minor.
Dropping these sodas loaded with heavily processed ingredients is good for the public. The airline can health-wash by only providing water to drink in the lounges and thereby cut their beverage costs.
I quit drinking all “Woke-A-Cola” products several years ago. Stick to making and selling soft drinks and other good products and keep your politics to yourself!
It’s interesting that Turkey has received exactly zero backlash from the fact that it invaded Cyprus, has occupied the northern part of Cyprus since 1975, and the area is now filled with Turkish settlers – and this is ongoing violation of European Union territory and sovereignty!
This ongoing crime against European Union citizens is without considering the history of Turkish outrages including the Armenian Genocide and the invasion and occupation of what used to be multi-ethnic Smyrna, murdering and expelling it’s Christian residents, and annexing it into Turkey so that it is now called Izmir. We’ll also ignore ongoing Turkish atrocities against Kurds in what rightfully should be Kurdistan. We’ll also ignore that Turkey is freely used as a haven for terrorists not only from Hamas, but for Muslim Brotherhood terrorists in China and around the world.
I don’t know (and frankly don’t care) what Soda has to do with Israel, but although Turkey has had a steep decline in the past decade, it is still a champion of hypocrisy and demagoguery.
Erdogan has led Turkey straight down into the cesspool that is Arab Jew hatred in the Middle East. What a way to destroy Turkish society.
Who cares? USA and Israel shall conquer all the terrorists.
Many Americans loathe Israel despite the bipartisan political support for that Jewish nation.
That’s our NATO “ally”. What a joke. If you believe that they would fulfill their NATO obligations if the US were attacked then you’re as naïve and stupid as the western leftist hamas supporters that are nothing more than useful idiots for Iran.
Erdogan is of the Muslim Brotherhood radical Islamic organization which Hamas also belongs to (the Wahabi fundamentalist school of Islam that is also prevalent in Qatar). The developments in Turkey are very worrisome, the country has turned from a western liberal democracy (Atarturk) to a fundamentalist dictatorship under Erdogan. Anyone setting foot on.a Turkish airlines plane is taking his life in his hands.
Boycott Turkish Airlines
@SFO/EWR
“Many”? You. Speak for yourself, leftist hamas lover. Please go help hamas in person and find out how they really think of you western leftists. Bring one of your buddies that isn’t sure about the reality of their gender too.
Turkey was very supportive of US military operations on the ground in Afghanistan during pretty much the entirety of the time from 9/11 to 2021. They were far more helpful than most NATO allies there.
Also, Turkey just helped the Biden Admin to get Russia to release US hostages and some others. That release is something that has infuriated many a Putin lover and Netanyahu lover who dislikes the Biden Admin.
In the meantime Netanyahu ordered the assassination of the chief negotiator for getting Hamas’s military wing to release the remaining Israeli, European and American October 7th hostages held in Gaza, thus extending the horrible detention of people whom he failed in the lead up to October 7th and since.
Mantis is showing his cluelessness again. Here’s a clue Mantis: SFO/EWR comments are that of the racist right-wingers who like you don’t salute the American flag for having made America so very great with DEI and the economic envy of the world.
Maybe Chaz can tell us when the US will conquer that terrorist war criminal Netanyahu. Or maybe he cannot, while Netanyahu brags in Hebrew to his followers that he can use and abuse the US more than anyone else.
Tr*mp fan Mak has issues with “champion of hypocrisy and demagoguery”? Talk about hypocrisy and demagoguery from the person throwing stones from a glass house. ROTFLOL
Turkey also once banned Dole fruit products in retaliation for Senator Bob Dole mentioning the Armenian Genocide of 1915 even though he had no connection to the company. But life imitates art! If you catch the 1961 comedy, “One, Two, Three” one of the premises is that the Muslim states of the Middle East have banned Coke. The more things change….
Turkey is just weird and extremely nationalistic in a way that is so MAGA like. They even renamed their country because the country’s name happened to be the name of a bird in English. Remember “freedom fries”. All because a bunch of Republicans were unhappy the French weren’t on board the neocon adventure at the time.
Israel is a racist, genocidal country.
Since all of my flying is for pleasure now (of the destination not so much the act of flying), they are not an airline I’d likely fly. My act of protest is to use the old name. Though, I have decided to spell Brasil the way they do.
Why boycott Turkish Airlines when you may be able to get an easy Turkish Airlines status match to get TK*G and free lounge access when flying United Airlines domestically?
Turkish Airlines includes some of the best economy class airline food around when flying short/medium-single-aisle flights from Europe.
Turkish and Aegean are about as good as it gets with food when flying such flights in economy class out of the 20 biggest airports in Europe with TK service.
This Thanksgiving, I’m using duck.
No Turkish coffee for me either.
🙂
You are all wrong!
Turkish Airlines are losing money. They are just cutting costs.
They swapped Coke for a local cheap brand. They also removed beer from the lounges for almost a year. (now beer is back).
And many other perks are removed from the lounges.
It has nothing to do with Israel.
.
The IST lounge is one of the best lounges that I’ve ever been in. So much better stuff to drink there than a woke Coke.
@GUWonder – The cost of coke and the other sodas to the airlines in the lounge is negligible per drink. Restaurants and other places that sell the products, particularly from fountains love them because it’s impossible to not make a huge profit on them.
Frankly, when these places drop my preferences, I drop them, particularly if they drop them for stupid political statements. By the way, for huge numbers of migraine sufferers, not those with headaches, but millions of those with migraines count on Coke to help get them through attacks, whether to soothe their pain or quell their nausea or both. In survey after survey of migraine sufferers, concerning non-medicinal working remedies Coke the full sugar version, ice cold is the number one product used to treat migraines.
Why. Frankly no one in the migraine community is sure and since we don’t know exactly what’s in Coke, I doubt that we’ll ever know precisely why. It’s certainly not strictly the caffeine, sugar or the carbonation. These things can also be found in other beverages, like coffee or other sodas like Mountain Dew or Pepsi. While some suffering from migraines absolutely mention those as their go-to caffeine sources and treatment sources, there is a clear overwhelming preference for Coca-Cola in the migraine community.
I’m a member of that community suffering from chronic migraines for decades. Coke is my go to treatment that’s not medication. If an airline refuses to carry Coke or a lounge offers Pepsi or something else, I drop them like a hot potato.
As to Turkish Airlines, I stopped flying them a while back as the Turkish government has become more and more anti-American, anti-woman, and anti-freedom for their citizens. I have plenty of airlines to choose from and I choose to fly other airlines. Refusing to fly Coca-Cola merely put another nail in Turkish Air’s coffin for me.
The fountain sodas are very profitable for restaurants, bars, theaters, convenience stores and the like. But for hotels or airlines, fountain sodas can be less relevant than soda cans/bottles. Also, for airlines the providing of drinks are more generally cost centers and not profit centers — and that’s different than for the places that sell fountain sodas.
Depending on the market, the drink salespeople can bundle the fountain sodas, the machines and the cans/bottles of their drinks when trying to reel in a client or keep a client and make the discounted deal contingent upon excluding or downgrading competitors. In some parts, a grocery store chain may even only sell bottles of Coke product lines at the best price if excluding or downgrading Pepsi product lines at the stores. And everywhere these sales are closed on the basis of relationships, price, quality and/or delivery time/conditions. It’s pretty safe to assume Turkey and Turkish airlines is not extraordinary in that regard. Also, popular sentiment in some parts can make products or services visibility associated with some foreign sources less popular than other sources — like when Swiss eggs would sell out at higher prices in some Swiss stores than cheaper French eggs right next to them; or when cheaper Israeli bell peppers would fail to sell out at lower prices in Swedish grocery stores than more expensive bell peppers from EU countries would sell at the same Swedish grocery stores.
Well done, Turkish Airlines. Coca Cola is a big time corporate human rights abuser, sponsoring the extra judicial killings of union workers in places like Colombia.
Coca Cola also has at least one plant in an illegal Israeli settlement on stolen Palestinian land. It is complicit in Israeli genocide.
I would love to see more companies following suit in opposing corporations complicit in Israeli war crimes.
Hilarious, given the history of Coca-Cola and Fanta in1940’s Germany.
I’ve never flown Turkish, and I’ve heard mixed reviews. But I don’t feel any urgency to try.
Now can the US withhold the $100 million in annual aid to Turkey to protest their airlines protest?
Bonvoy’d! Just like no Coke in former SPG properties.
Did El Al’s controlling shareholder say no to the call for boycotting Ben & Jerry’s?
Frankly I wouldn’t have any idea that Coke/Pepsi/Fanta et al had been dropped from anywhere, as I never drink ‘sodas’ as you Americans quaintly call these sugar bombs.
Geez, anti-Semitic imbecile GUwunder has crapped all over this topic. Half of the posts are his idiotic anti-Israel rants and blabber nobody reads. And he’s got a thing for democratically-elected heads of state, such as Bibi.
Way to go, anti-Semitic moron. Hamas is waiting for you.
I flew Turkish a couple of days ago. It’s a very good airline & I have many miles I am not going to waste over politics, although I would prefer corporations not have politics extrinsic to their mission, just like I’m not going to boycott a movie or an album over the star’s politics (would see few movies if I did). I thought Pepsi was on the flight, but not certain as I don’t drink the stuff because it’s terrible for you. That should be an issue, given the diabetes epidemic. Coke is woke but kills African Americans disproportionately. The Lounge in Istanbul is excellent and rated among the world’s best by many publications.
Racist Tr*mp-loving, war criminal Netanyahu-loving Gennady is as clueless as always with his baseless character assassinations and his falsely equating criticism of the rogue Netanyahu regime with being antisemitism. I am pro-Israel and support there being a secure Jewish-majority state of Israel in compliance with international law. The rogue Netanyahu regime and its actions are a long-term security risk to Israel and are abusive of US support for Israel and contrary to US national interest in wasting our money and growing hatred toward and security risks against America while trying to push the US to engage in yet another war wanted by neocons. That rogue Netanyahu is a racist warmonger who cares more about staying in power to keep himself out of jail than he cares about getting the October 7th hostages to safety sooner than later. Shame, shame on Netanyahu and Gennady.
Gennady is so clueless about Israel that he doesn’t even realize that Netanyahu isn’t one of the “democratically-elected heads of state” in the world.. But what else can we expect from the guy who can’t even properly distinguish antisemitism from legitimate criticism of a government.
Here’s a clue for the clueless: Netanyahu is Israel’s “head of government” — Netanyahu is not Israel’s “head of state”. Israel’s head of state is Israel’s president; Netanyahu’s is head of government as Prime Minister of Israel.
Israel’s head of state is Herzog, not Netanyahu.
Gary, I know you need clicks but this really is wince-worthy. You do so much great analysis and it just hurts to see clickbait like this.
I have a substantial dislike for Erdogan, but the idea of him having destroyed Turkey is questionable. Before Erdogan’s party won enough votes to take rule of Turkey, the country’s GDP per capita had long been more or less flat in $ terms and they were close to Ukraine-level poor. Under the rule of Erdogan’s party, Turkey has broken out of being (pre-2022) Ukraine level poor and is now more or less in the league of Russia and Argentina in terms of GDP per capita. The Turks are economically far better off now than they were before Erdogan came into power in Ankara, and that reality of having become far better off economically under Erdogan’s party rule is personal to a large proportion of Turkey’s voting electorate.
Has Erdogan messed up Turkey more than MAGA and proto-MAGA culture warriors have messed up the US? MAGA Lord Don the Con is a bigger problem.
As former Israeli PM Ehud Barak has long been saying in private and in public, it’s Netanyahu who had bizarrely deemed Hamas as an asset for Israel for no less than 3 decades. That’s Gennady’s Bibi for you — even after 3.5 decades of Hamas being Hamas.