Afternoon tea in the air : Flying to Azerbaijan with Turkish Airlines

I’m intensely lucky on planes. I normally either get upgraded, or at least given two seats to myself.

No matter what the seating arrangements, I still dislike being stuck in a metal tube for more than a couple of hours…last time I went to Istanbul, we drove there all the way from Beijing.

This time I was speaking at a United Nations World Tourism Organisation conference in Azerbaijan that was sponsored by Turkish Airlines, so got to fly. As a result I got there about four months quicker.

As Turkish Airlines gave me the seat for free, I thought I’d treat myself to an upgrade for the eleven hour flight from Beijing to Istanbul. To my surprise it was only 1300rmb, or a little over £10 an hour, to move up to the aptly named Comfort Class.

Turkish Airlines Comfort Class

Comfort Class uses domestic business class seats on international flights, which creates a decent mix of luxury and value. The seats recline nearly flat and have a generous amount of leg room – 46” pitch is enough that at 6’3” I could barely touch the seat in front with my hands.

Having paid to upgrade, my lucky flying streak continued and as the doors closed the seat next to me was still empty. I spread out my stuff and poked through the complementary pouch of flying accessories. One day I’ll actually use some.

The flight took off at midnight, so I was surprised when afternoon tea arrived. I was expecting maybe a glass of water and some peanuts or pretzels, but this tray of delights arrived:

Afternoon tea in the air on Turkish Airlines

Cheese and cakes…two of the things I’ve been missing in China for two years now. Luckily the lights had gone down already, or people would be wondering what I was grinning about.

The little pouch had proper metal cutlery, but sat alone in the dark I consider this finger food

Each of the Comfort Class seats had a good-sized monitor in the arm rest, with a huge selection of movies and entire TV series.

Looking around, roughly half the seats in Comfort Class were empty. After watching TV until about 2am I drifted off to sleep.  I was awoken a couple of hours later by loud voices from the front of the plane.

Looking round, the cabin lights were back on and nearly all the seats were full with people who had snuck forward from Economy.

The head stewardess was a little blunter than on some airlines. Rather than a discrete “Please move back to your assigned seat” she stood at the front and named & shamed. “You there, get out of that seat…” “And you. We’re all waiting…”

The bluntness worked quickly – Sheepishly they all made their way back down the plane as the paying passengers chatted with relief that it wasn’t anything more serious.

The staff had moved everyone out so they could serve us a little snack at 4am:

Unexpected, but good at 4am

Not as exciting to me as the cheese and cakes, but delicious none-the-less.

I drifted off to sleep again. The second time I woke I was surprised to find a man rummaging through my belongings. He then asked if he could have the cushion currently under my head. I don’t remember what I said, but wasn’t yes. It would have been more effective but it came out in an unfortunately high pitched voice.  He still looked hurt and offended, as though I’d stolen his cushion or something, and started rummaging through my books on the empty seat beside me. I’d already given that spare cushion to someone, but he wouldn’t believe me.

Glancing at the map, we were now flying over my final destination of Baku. Thanks to the vagaries of international air routes I had to fly another four hours to Istanbul, then four hours back to Azerbaijan.

After a third meal of spinach pie at 7am for breakfast, we finally started our descent. In addition to the four hour flight retracing my steps, I had a four hour wait at Istanbul.

Istanbul Ataturk airport

Istanbul Ataturk airport is very efficient. I was off the plane and though the transit desk in about fifteen minutes. Normally that would be good, but this left me with over three and a half hours to wander round the airport.

Comfort Class doesn’t include lounge access, but to pass time I went up the escalator to see the lounge floor anyway. One of the three lounges was exclusively for the use of HSBC customers. Not something I’d seen before, but I was happy to give it a go. Other than the staff I was the only person in there:

HSBC Lounge in Istanbul Airport

This went some way towards me forgiving them for the appalling customer service I get from HSBC in China.

Sitting in the lounge, looking out over the concourse it’s noticeable, coming from mostly skinny China, how many people in Europe are so overweight that they need an electric wheelchair to move round the airport. It’s also noticeable later how many of the same people can suddenly get up and move very quickly when it came time to get the best seats on the bus out to the tarmac.

Arriving in Baku (after a fourth meal of the night) there were lots of visa forms to fill out, but some UNWTO/Azerbaijan Tourism Office staff were on hand to make the process as smooth as possible before dropping us at the conference hotel.

Epilogue

Try as I might on the flight back, no one would let me pay for an upgrade. Instead I was in the second-to-last row on the plane. As is usual by now, I’d been left with two seats to myself as the plane doors closed.

The last lady on the plane worked her way up the aisle and smiled as she sat down next to me. My lucky streak had finally ended.

By the time the plane took off we started to chat, and barely stopped until we landed 9 hours later in Beijing. The flight felt like it was only a couple hours long as the conversation was so good. That’s rare for me – I’ll consider that lucky streak unbroken.

This trip was arranged by the Azerbaijan Tourist Board, as part of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation Silk Road Project.

Hopefully related posts:

Gold and Green : Flying Finnair from Beijing to London High Heels to Ganja – It’s fun flying in Azerbaijan Villa Petrolea, the Nobel Brothers Museum – Baku, Azerbaijan Cathay Pacific – Hong Kong, China