erm.....interesting (Istanbul Airlines)

Member Name: londongirl

Product:	Istanbul Airlines
Date:	23/06/00 (391 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: flys to Northern Cyprus

Disadvantages: chaotic and disorganised

I flew with Istanbul airlines a couple of years ago to Northern Cyprus. As soon as I found out this was the airline we were travelling on i was a bit nervous, simply because i had never heard of them before. As it was they were ok, although not exactly the most organised airline ever. The decor of the plane was an uninspiring brown and cream which added to my fears that the plane was going to fall apart any minute simply because it looked so dated, in actual fact it was probably the same type of plane hundreds of airlines operate. The flight stopped in Istanbul, because of regulations that all aeroplanes landing in Northern Cyprus must come from Turkey, and this is where the confusion began. Some people were carrying on to Northern Cyprus, others were alighting at Istanbul, yet the cabin crew did not appear to know whether those carrying on their journey should stay on the plane or transfer to another plane. In the end we had to transfer and were handed a new boarding card with just a seat number on as we left the plane. Unfortunatly they handed out the cards in numerical order as people got off, consequently splitting up families and friends if they had not been directly behind each other when getting off the plane. This resulted in everyone scrambling and trying to find seats on the new plane to avoid 5 year old children being sat next to strangers.

Lets just say it was a bit chaotic. For a reasonably long flight (4 and a half hours altogether), the food wasn't up to much really either. A cheese roll in a paper napkin was handed to us both on the way there and the way back.

This airline isn't all bad but i wouldn't ever recommend it if you didn't have to use it. For flying to northern cyprus though, you don't have much choice though it is either istanbul airlines or turkish airlines which i have no experience of.

Summary: