Not sure why but I have been looking forward to flying Turkish for a while now. Always been something mysterious about them.

Sort of like that weird uncle who you only see twice a year.

Once at Xmas and then once during National Spaghetti day.

TK recently announced that they had found a spare A350 and would start flying it to Melbourne.

No, not Melbourne Florida.

The Real Melbourne. As in the one down under.

The first leg was from BRU-IST.

My my. What an experience.

TK, like many airlines, are still flogging the hide out of a very tired, worn out fleet of A330’s.

Qantas has beaten their electric jets so much that the pilots have to start on another runway in order to have enough room to get the old birds off the ground.

TK has the old J class seats in these A330’s.

Look for a 3 hour flight they’re not bad.

Except mine didn’t work.

It made a lot of noise when you pressed the buttons. But thats about it. It sounded like it had a small rodent stuck under one of the seat tracks. And it sort of vibrated from side to side (in a not unpleasant way if I’m honest). And I challenge you to find out where to plug in your headphones on this seat. Go on. You won’t find it drunk. Or sober.

The entertainment system is fine and seems to work fine but the movie I watched was so heavily edited, that it made no sense at all. I watched the BeeKeeper and it apparently is full of salty language which obviously the TK movie person didn't care for.

I’d heard good things about TK’s catering.

Obviously this crew and TK’s catering people were sick the day of this flight.

Boarding was a bit of a zoo.

There were a handful of spare seats in J - which I thought strange as the Cabin Manager insisted that the jet was packed to the rafters.

We reach 10,000 feet and once the familar “ding ding” echoed through the cabin, a crew person comes around asking for drink orders.

A G&T it is for me and my seat mate (we were sitting in the middle section of the forward cabin).

Drinks arrive, minus the ice. Now I know what you’re saying “this is a first world problem”

I politely enquire to the crew member…

“Can I please have some ice?”
“No”
“Why not?”
“All melted”

I’m thinking to myself what sort of ice did they load in Brussels less than 30 mins ago where it has all melted!

Maybe the Belgians charge an outrageous amount for bags of frozen water. Maybe they drag it all the way from Turkey on the flight over. Who knows. Very strange.

Then the meal starts.

Well presented and like many of the US airlines, everything came out on the one tray. Sort of like the old TV dinners.

I had something which was supposed to be beef. I suppose it was and if I’m honest, it was edible.

Once the J cabin was served, the crew disappeared. As in vanished. As in went full bore Bermuda triangle.

My colleague decided to go to the toilet and she came back and started laughing and said the entire crew were all sitting in the forward galley behind the curtains, on their phones, eating, laughing and get this, one was even vaping!

Maybe it’s a Turkish thing.

Don’t get me wrong. The flight was fine. Aircraft stayed in the air (TC-LOM is the tail number for those who care). The pilots obviously knew where home base was and the crew were nothing but friendly.

I’m hoping the A350 flight from IST-SIN-MEL is a little more polished.

And I am looking forward to spending time in the lounge at IST.

Don’t however get me started on the size of the Istanbul Airport.

Holy mother of all that is huge. 10M square feet of massiveness.

When we landed, we were so far away from the terminal that for a split second, I thought we touched down in Greece and had to trek it in from there. I’m pretty sure we had to stop for gas on the way.

As is always the way with a late evening flight, you always seem to draw the gate that is the furthest away from customs and baggage claim. We parked so far away from civilization that airport staff were handing out bottles of water and freeze dried food and wished us well on our journey and praised Allah that we would make it safely to the main terminal.

The Turkish government, which is run by a rather eccentric benevolent dictator, fleeces tourists for $50 somethings and this lets you stay for 90 days.

Customs and immigration was effortless, and because it had literally taken 40 mins to get from the jet to baggage claim, our bags were already on the belt.

I know this was a one off flight experience and was in the eyes of many, considered a regional hop.

There’s just something quirky about TK.

On the one hand it’s a massive airline. Flies to more cities than anyone else (if you believe their PR).

But on other hand, they’re eccentric, and hints of a Turkish taxi driver sometimes enters the realm. You could get yelled at, ignored or simply dropped off miles from where you wanted to go.

That's the Turkey I love.