Good afternoon. Today I would like to tell you about the very first flight on Turkish Airlines from Athens to Istanbul at night. In one of the previous reviews, I talked about a flight on the same route on a Chinese carrier, this time let's look at the comfort of the Turks.
1:30 at night, about 2.5 hours before departure.
The parking was in an open space, from there it took about 5 minutes to walk to the entrance to the terminal, taking into account the climb to the second floor.
After going through security, I found an empty terminal with not a soul in it. I thought so until I walked to my check-in counters.
Only 2 flights were expected in the next few hours: mine, and also Air Serbia to Belgrade.
Since Istanbul was a transit point for a flight to St. Petersburg on the same airline, I was happily printed out boarding passes for both flights, which gave me the advantage of not having to cross the border twice and stand in line for check-in again and security check.
Walking around the terminal, I discovered echoes from the past...
Since I still had time to explore the terminal, I rushed to the local museum. During the construction of the Athens airport for the 2004 Olympics, many historical artifacts were discovered, which were subsequently placed in this museum. At the same time, Ellinikon Airport, located within the city, was closed and today demolished; before that it was abandoned for many years. To this day, in its place stands a Boeing 747-200 Olympic Airways, which will become part of a new residential complex with a park.
And here is the museum itself!
Since the museum is considered a quiet place, many passengers decided to take advantage of this and use it as a place to sleep.
So, it's time to go to the clean zone! First the inspection, then the border control, where they asked almost nothing.
As I passed by the Duty-Free, I noticed that most of the stores were closed, but it was possible to look at the goods.
I looked up and saw the schedule, which explains such a small number of people at 2 am.
There was practically no one in the main part... At that moment I already imagined how I would own 3 chairs, and not one.
However, I noticed that my gate was located at the other end of the clear area, and having gone there, my dreams instantly evaporated.
While standing in line, I noticed that at least a third of the passengers were Russian speakers. On the boarding bridge through the glass I saw it... an 8-year-old Airbus A321, also with winglets!
(And again an inverted photo, sorry, I don’t know what to do with this)
The first thing that catches the passenger’s eye is the screen, it worked properly. Unfortunately, there were no external cameras, but at the same time there were games available, including Angry Birds World Tour, which could only be played from an airplane.
Games are games, but you have to look through the window, you could watch the Embraer E190 of the Bulgarian National Pen.
Flight attendants usually conduct the briefing. You can, but why, when the screen is not only in front, but also above your head?)
So, it’s 4 am, it’s time to take off.
A tutorial on navigation at the Istanbul airport was available on the screen, which is quite important: it’s easy to get lost in it.
Time serve food. The following items were provided from the night ration: salad, muffin, bun, butter, jam, as well as water from a strange container that could easily be spilled.
More flight data:
Towards the end of the flight, a forest fire could be seen outside the window; I didn’t find any information about it in the news.
Only during approach did I realize that the trail behind the plane on the screen was leaving a real trajectory, a small thing, but nice, almost like in Flightradar 24.
After landing, we taxied for about 10 minutes to the gate.
When leaving the plane, the flight attendants detained me. They were concerned that I was taking photos/videos from the very entrance to the plane. Their main question was: were there any crew members in the footage? Having received an answer, they let me go.
The first impression of the airline is great! There are no complaints except the ticket price:)
End!
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