#85 out of 94 Airlines A minimum of 10 flight-reports within the past two years is required to appear in the rankings.
12 reviews
Today I'm taking advantage of a mostly study-free Spring Break to visit Turkey – or as they prefer now, Türkiye. The trip will include the biggest city, İstanbul, and the capital Ankara. The trip technically begins at my home city of Groningen, where I take an early morning train to Schiphol; I plan to arrive with plenty of time for security, passport control and some planespotting. The flight I'll take today is operated by Anadolu Jet, known as Turkish Airlines' low cost carrier.
Despite what the routing may suggest, it is not a trip to Ankara with a stopover in İstanbul, but rather to İstanbul with a day trip to Ankara. Thus, there will be a total of 4 separate flights to review. Since there were many options for each leg, I decided to pick a different one for each flight. Unfortunately, the choices I made mean I will not get to experience TK's "standard" international Economy product.
Getting to Schiphol is as easy as always, given that there are direct Intercity trains from my city. Arriving to the airport, I check the website which says that I should head towards Departures 3. However, following the signs at Departures 3 just leads everyone to the security filter at Departures 1, which is just a waste of time, given that I have no checked bags (for now). The queue at security is not long, but my bag gets flagged, and waiting for my turn takes quite a while. I have no pictures until after passport control, as there are security concerns surrounding photography of the security features of airports.
Schiphol allows most bottled liquids to go through, but today they seem to have a problem with my water bottle. They give me the option to dump it or leave, empty the bottle and go back through security. And I will not lose my bottle. Thus, I have to go back through, my bag gets flagged again, have to wait for the check, no issues found and I am finally airside. After a fast passport control thanks to my EU citizenship, I refill my bottle and locate my gate, E4.
Despite the time wasted at security, I am still early, so I take advantage of the open lounging areas to listen to some music and charge my phone. Afterwards, I go around the E pier to see who was visiting the Netherlands today. A selection of my best pictures include a Delta A350 with a KLM B777 with Asia livery in the background:
Another KLM B777, closer up. In my perhaps biased opinion, these Dutch triple-7s are some of the best looking airplanes I've seen. Maybe some day I'll get to fly in one of them, but prices for long haul, direct flights out of Schiphol are discouraging. Furthermore, so far I have no plans for any long enough trips that could be flown by the 777…
Bad luck keeps showing its face, as our gate is facing south-east, which means the blinds are down to block the bright sun, making it hard to get a nice shot of our ride, an Anadolu Jet Boeing 737 MAX 8. At the gate, we get a notification that the plane is packed, so cabin bags will have to be checked into the hold. The staff, at the gate, was not very nice about this, loudly arguing with an older lady and still angry at me despity my attempts to always cooperate with them.
Registration: TC-LAF (Türkiye)
Type: Boeing 737 MAX 8
Age: 10 months (June 2022)
After the troubles handing the cabin bag, I board the plane and head towards 10A. The seat has a window, a bit too far from my eyes to comfortably look outside, but not terrible, with views of the engine. The legroom is quite good for a so-called low cost carrier. The seat reclines and features a (rather slow) USB charging port. The tray table is not very sturdy, but it is spacious and can be extended. The interior look is unremarkable. Overhead, every seat has a reading light and AC.
The aircraft does not feature any sort of inflight entertainment, Wi-Fi service or universal power outlets. The headrest is just a flat part of the seats.
We push back a bit behind schedule, which gives me a good look at some other birds waiting for their turn, including a Delta A330, a China Southern A350, a KLM B777 and some TUI Dreamliners.
We take off at 13:08 from 09, the Buitenveldertbaan. We then head east and slightly south, towards our destination.
The eastwards heading gives the A-column a nice view of the Flevopolder.
Shortly after departure I get my preordered Turkish Meatballs meal, at an additional cost of 9,12 €. There are sides and dessert, plus a cup of water, a paper and a wet towel, salt and pepper. And metal cutlery!
There is some pickled cabbage on the side, but it's not too interesting. The meatballs are very tasty, and the vegetables also taste nice, with a remarkable sauce. The rice is seasoned nicely, though I personally prefer plain rice when there's already a flavorful sauce in the dish. I'm just being picky, though. The bread is not too tasty and a bit chewy, but the butter is alright. Though the optimal way to use it is to soak it in what remained of the sauce of the main dish. The cake for dessert is plain and dry, nothing to write home about. Regardless, I ordered meatballs and those were satisfying.
I was also offered a drink, as did all passengers. I chose the orange juice, though it tasted like uncarbonated Fanta, which is not very nice. Flight attendants were nicer and more attentive than at the gate, though.
I give a visit to the front restroom, which is rather small but clean, with no bad smells to note. There was no queue to use it.
The flight overall is calm and peaceful, with a cloud cover building up below us as we go East. When we descend towards them, the sun causes a "Glory" around our shadow, a really cool phenomenon.
Breaking through the clouds, we finally get a glimpse of the massive city as we descend towards Sabiha Gökçen airport.
Descending over some neighbourhoods, we arrive and land at 06. At the moment, I felt that we vacated the runway at a rather high speed, but I don't really know how fast is too fast.
SAW directs arriving passengers straight to passport control, and the views of the apron from the connecting hallway aren't good, so I can't get a better picture of our aircraft. Entry to the country takes a bit of queuing, but nothing wild. After my passport is stamped, I head towards the metro station, having also collected my bag which is already out. At the metro station, the public transportation İstanbul Kart is also sold. Since my hotel is in Kadıköy, it leaves me in a perfect location in some 45 minutes.
AMS has good facilities and services, though sometimes security is a mess. Luckily it wasn't during the busy holiday season!
Anadolu Jet offer multiple features that I wouldn't typically expect of low cost carriers, such as recline, USB chargers and (at a charge) a good meal with metal cutlery. However, their prices do seem closer to standard TK flights than their competitor Pegasus.
SAW offers a straightforward arrival experience, with some queuing for passport control. Wait for the checked bags was short, and it has good connections to the city centre.
2 Comments
Thanks for sharing!
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