My BIZARRE Flight on Turkmenistan Airlines: World's Strangest Airline

This week I take my

strangest

flight

yet as I fly through one of the loneliest countries on the planet, experience an empty $2 billion mega-airport, far removed from these guys, and discover how it's possible to stand around drinking through it all. takeoff while spending 2 days on board Turkmenistan Airlines, a crazy welcome to Turkmenistan, well, good morning and guten tag from a freezing frankfurt airport, there is literally snow on the ground, it's 7 o'clock today. I'm super, super excited and excited because I'm about to take a

flight

through one of the most secretive and hard to reach countries in the entire

world

because today I'm taking a flight on the national

airline

of Turkmenistan.

Now you wouldn't believe how difficult it was to book this flight today on Turkmenistan Airlines. You can't book on their website, they don't really like people trying to book their flight so you have to find really random ways to do it and I ended up finding an online travel agent in Turkey, believe it or not, it just didn't seem like much. reliable. the bank rejected the payments and all that, but in the end I managed to get a ticket, so we have to see if that ticket is really going to work now and we have to go to the Turkistan Airlines check-in counter in Frankfurt, so let's say the check -in for Turkestan is at counter 889 and 890.

From what I can see, we go to 869. Welcome to Frankfurt. I eventually found the check-in desk and it was time to see if they would let me. On the plane, many Turk stops are almost completely closed to the outside

world

, so a government invitation is usually needed to travel there. I was just hoping to be able to transit through check-in, please, thank you. Bangkok is your final destination. like no Thailand bangok Bang else bags forck no bags to check in I'll carry forward yes how many sorry only cabin yes this is a cabin the damn business all good yes it's okay it's okay this okay, okay, uh d8 is your G number yeah, boarding time 320, you have a window seat, perfect, thank you and I'll do it.

I will receive the next boarding pass at Ash in Ashat, okay, perfect, thank you very much, of course, thank you, then there we will check in for Turkmenistan Airlines as much as possible. Ashat anyway, apparently I have to get a new boarding pass there for my next trip, a little stressful, but hey, we're good for now, at least we have at least one flight to Menan, if that At least I'm getting a Bit nervous now, so you don't have access to the business class lounge on Turkmenistan Airlines, but I've used my priority pass to get into the first class lounge here in Frankfurt, which is quite nice and there's hardly anyone here , which is nice and they have some snacks and things to eat, so here it is time to head to the gate and catch my plane to Turkmenistan.

I'm a little scared hello how are you there we go thank you thank you there we are that you oh there she is the beautiful toan Airlines 7200 LR she is going to take me to the other side of Ashat right now and then we have something very cold too to take us almost fingers crossed , everything going well in turn a lot of St but yeah very excited let's go and get on board hello okay thank you thank you so here I was and there was no turning back as I headed down to see what was in store . on Turkmenistan Airlines and I'm not going to lie.

I was probably more nervous about this flight than any other I had taken before. Hello, how are you welcome? Thank you one J One J yes right side thank you yes welcome Tech many seats Triple 7 has 28 angled flat seats in a configuration of 232 business class with another 263 economy seats behind. It's pretty outdated, but this was only a 5 hour flight. Here we are welcome on board the Turkmenistan Airlines Boeing 7200 LR. It is one of the last. two £700 trips they made Tur Menan picked them up cheap because no one else wanted them, so, yeah, here it is, we've got pretty decent legroom, we've got the T Menan logo all over the wall, a bit of a TV, here comes the table.

I don't know if there's power here or not, oh yeah, there's power down there, USB and a three prong plug, plus, very good seat controls down here, not that bad, the crew seems pretty friendly so far, let's not wear it out that kindness. Although we will be on our way very soon, let me rest my feet with a pillow and blanket, as well as some beautiful slippers from Turkmenistan Airline. The crew came with cups of apple juice before leaving the gate, which was a bit of a strange mix, but the idea was there, at least okay, so boarding is complete, there's no one next to me, so which is quite nice, it's quite busy, it's quite a busy flight, actually, business class.

I'm trying to be careful not to move my camera too much. no it's not that bad, I'm actually pretty busy here in business class, we'll see what the next flight is like when I get there to finish the minute, but yeah, it looks like we're on our way, the safety demonstration played and a advertisement. That said, drinking alcohol and taking photos out the window was strictly prohibited, which worried me a little. Part of me was left wondering if we would have another situation like my Russian anti-noff flight where I saw a flight attendant sitting next to me to make sure I didn't take any photos as we taxied to the runway.

I had a feeling this might turn into a very long flight but of course there was no turning back as we took to the runway in an unstoppable plane heading towards one. one of the loneliest countries on the planet, my first flight tonight took me southeast of Germany through Austria, Hungary, Romania and the Black Sea before crossing Georgia Aaban and the Caspian Sea towards Ash Kabat. Tonight's flight time was 4 hours and 48 minutes cruising at 35 and 37,000 feet, so we are in the air from Frankfurt on the Min 7 200 LR technical stand, what a takeoff, it was incredible. I love it when you can, like you know, on a day where you can take off from the ground and in a matter of seconds. you are above the clouds, I love it anyway, now we are heading east towards Ashat in Turkmenistan as the sun is just starting to set behind us so far, very good.

C Pro, pretty friendly seats, pretty comfortable, not too bad and not too bad so far. We had a look at the inflight entertainment and there wasn't much choice, they had individual episodes of some western shows like Friends and of course Young Sheldon but they were all heavily censored with every word that could be seen in their slightly offensive cut. One thing that was great though was the external cameras, although you couldn't see much, as always, although the best in-flight entertainment could be found by looking out the window, albeit under penalty of Turkmen law this evening. Of course, it was very sensitive and classified and I'm not supposed to show it to you, but here it is anyway, it's pretty sweet, isn't it something that really shouldn't be kept a secret?

However, the food on board is chicken. dish with noodles and well it's a bit of an unusual mix and it was a bit dry but actually I have to say it wasn't that bad it's time for the N Phillips blue review this is The Middle lav on the tri 700 which have. like a bit of a mirror, there's a pretty fancy sink, pretty good actually, some hand washing, a lone cup there and the toilet down there and it's relatively clean, we're about halfway through the flight now. L is still pretty clean considering this is in the middle, so we have economy and business class all using the same Loop.

Look, so far, the team has been pretty friendly. I'm still pretty nervous about making videos and stuff and trying to impress, you know, trying not to flaunt the camera too. a lot and stuff like that a bit, but they're still pretty friendly from my interactions with them so far anyway, they've been improving, the food was good and everything, so yeah, fingers crossed we'll see what it's like when we get down to Ashad. Ashkabad we will see what it is like when we arrive in Turkmenistan in a while. I also need to choose my abum pass when I arrive in Bangkok because they only gave me the abum pass until ashad in Frankfurt anyway.

I'm going to go back to my seat and relax, watch some Big Bang Theory and then, yeah, try to enjoy the rest of the flight, that was Nol Phillips Blou's review as the sun started to set over the Alps, things were going pretty well , I thought. I had a good meal, watched a late '90s episode of Friends, was an hour into the flight, and hadn't even been scolded yet, but all that was about to change when I started talking. about Turkmenistan, now I see one of the things that makes me really nervous about going to T man and yes, at that moment the head stewardess approached me and she told me that she had been reported and that she had to stop filming.

Immediately and to be honest, she didn't seem like the kind of person I wanted to be angry with me, so I had to be quite discreet for a few rather awkward hours until we landed in Turkmenistan, where, to be honest, I wasn't safe. What if you see Turkmenistan as a country that is often called the North Korea of ​​the former USSR? Well, here's a brief summary to explain why after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Turkmenistan gained its independence in 1991 and quickly got its first dictator president, Neov, who soon declared himself president for life, which is never really a good sign. , as he named himself Turkmen Bashi, meaning chief of the Turkmen, and subsequently named half of the cities in Turk Menan after himself and his family, as well as the days of the week and months of Durante the year and even the word pan was his mother's name during the rain, banned everything from car radios to beards, lip-syncing dogs, TV hosts, wearing makeup, and declared a national Melon Day holiday in honor to his favorite food, melons. replaced by a guy called gerbon ghouly Birdie muhamed after he died in 2007 yeah try saying that after having had some who were Turkman Bash dentists as well as erecting golden statues of himself he actually just renamed some Stakes after he himself banned non-white cars and had his image plastered on board every Turkmenistan Airlines plane, although it appears to have been removed today Turkmenistan has one of the worst human rights records on the planet, Internet It is largely banned, with a few exceptions, and all media outlets are state-controlled Reporters Without Borders ranked it 177th out of 180 countries for press freedom, just above North Korea. and slightly below Syria.

Oh, and photography and alcohol are banned on the state

airline

in theory, though, as I would discover later, but as we started. our approach I was feeling pretty nervous, you see, I had no idea if the head stewardess had called her boss when she caught me filming because well, who knows what really happens in places like this, I figured since they already caught me, I might as well do it. Look what other footage I was able to get when we landed, so I filmed the entire landing in Turkmenistan. The hill you can see in the background, by the way, is the one that all the citizens of Ashat make climb once a year to show their loyalty to take many.

Stan is very separated from the president, of course, because he travels by helicopter, so here we were in Ashad, the capital of Turkmenistan, hopefully only a couple of hours between flights, but time would tell if that forecast would be accurate, it was time to arrive. get off the plane and see what Turkmenistan had in store for me, thank you and when I got off the plane into the cold night, there was my first guard, he let me in so I wondered if things would really be okay now, it was actually great. getting off a Triple 7 down the aerial stairs, but I really didn't want to start waving a camera in front of half the Turkish military, so I had to hold on while heading to the bus, the bus took us to one of the

strangest

airports the ones I've been to.

This airport is only a few years old and cost us over $2 billion, but it only sees a handful of flights a day and is mostly completely empty. It's a beautiful airport to walk through, although even if it's all a bit surreal with guards watching your every move through the building. However, it soon came time to figure out how to navigate and it wasn't long before I ran into something I hadn't really worried about until this stage, a Covid. checkpoint in 2024, you go ENT to Turkmenistan, you still need a covid test and well, I didn't have one because I wasn't entering Turkestan, but still I had had covid a few weeks before taking this flight and although it was already clear from a long time.

By now I know that some tests can still take a month or two to register as negative. The question was what would happen if I had to take a test and it still came back positive. As I pondered this issue, I was fortunately pulled out and sent away. to a different room where I would get mytransit boarding pass Hello transfer hello to Bangkok is it possible to get a window seat please yes if possible thank you yes despite my nerves I always managed to try to get a seat next to the window, Bangkok window, yes please. if possible, business class, thank you, thank you and success, then it was time for the easiest security check in the world, which consisted of me walking straight in with all my belongings, setting off all the alarms and then being sent on my way with a shake of the head, and if this The airport had been strange on the way, while it was even stranger in Departures without a soul in sight apart from the gods, the airport was built to handle 14 million passengers a year or, in other words, 1600 passengers per hour, instead you see an average of only 100, which based on the number of passengers is about the same amount as Omaha Nebraska even though there is almost no one here, the guards watch you carefully while you walk, which everyone felt a little cheated on.

I finally made it to my gate and took a seat as far away from the guards as possible, hoping not to be seen doing a quick set piece for the camera. So welcome to the incredibly cool airport here in Ashkabad in Turkmenistan, this place is just huge, look at this and there's hardly anyone here, there's like two flights this time at night, um, but there's a business class lounger that I would have Loved driving and my flight boarded literally in 10 minutes to Bangkok, so I really don't have time. I don't want to take any chances because I can't really be stuck here because there's no way in, so, yeah, that's where we are right now, but yeah, next stop is Bangkok, with Turkmenistan on the way.

Triple 7 I think it's also a 300. Soon enough it was time to say goodbye to this surreal airport and board the flight to Bangkok, which turned out to be an even more surreal experience. Hello how are you? 12 12 Myer Bangkok is the newest addition to Turkmenistan's fleet, this Tri 7 300 flying for Cath Pacific until very recently. Business class has these beautiful LIF flat beds that are a big improvement over the 7200 I flew on. I took my first seat for the night in seat 12a this one here yeah okay perfect thank you so on board T Manan trip 7300 it looks like I'm the only passenger in business class unfortunately although that wouldn't be the case, since we are a group of drunks.

The passengers boarded with a bottle of whiskey even though alcohol was prohibited on Turkmenistan Airlines, the crew quickly provided them with glasses and the passengers continued to drink and chat with the crew around my seat, so I asked to be moved away from them, but while we were going out. To the runway they stood and chatted with the crew and perhaps the first time I saw this happen they stood in the aisle drinking throughout the entire takeoff, somehow miraculously they didn't even fall and even more miraculously they didn't even spill a drop. , but despite drunk passengers drinking during a flight on a dry airline and perhaps the most egregious safety violation I've ever seen on a flight before, all apparently supported by the crew. happy to be leaving Turkmenistan and on my way to Thailand, where I could at least enter the country even if the drunk guys hadn't called it a night yet.

Never in my life have I seen a The plane take off with the passengers and cabin crew still standing chatting about their miles, clinging on for dear life as we made our way down the runway, that was just something else, honestly, crazy. Welcome to Turkmenistan. My next leg took us south to Iran before turning east. through Pakistan and India crossing to the Bay of Bengal from there we cross Myanmar into Thailand with a flight time of 5 hours and 56 minutes sailing at 33 and 35,000 feet we are still at the beginning of a new year which means there is I still have time to think about the things we would like to achieve over the next year.

For me, one of the most important things for me is to be a little more efficient with my filming, which means I can spend more time here at home with the family and less time flying on sketchy

airlines

. I'm planning to finally finish my instrument rating this year, which will be pretty good for when the weather isn't like that and I want to spend more time having fun doing exciting things. I've also been working hard. Trying to be healthy not only physically but also mentally and one of my big goals this year is to try to prevent other people's negativity from affecting my happiness, whether it's from the ever-present online trolls or just other people in my life, and for that reason.

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I just loaded up the entire flight and went to Nagapur in India. But breakfast is here. I say it's breakfast, it's meat and pasta and things like that, so it's not really a breakfast per se, but it is indeed a breakfast, so, um. yeah, let's go to bed, I have to admit it doesn't taste very good at this time of the morning, I don't really eat breakfast food, my brain is not in the mood for beef yet, but I'm very impressed that I finally got the chance to travel in Turkestan.

airlines

, this is the third time I have had them book my original flight that I had booked with them in 2019 19 and I was going to fly back with them from Kazakhstan to Birmingham but then my scat Airways flight was delayed and I ended up missing my connection and how to read again, then I had them booked again, but then they banned them in the EU since then, their website just hasn't been able to book a flight with them anywhere they closed completely during covid, all of Turkestan literally had no flights in and out for about a year and a half until Manisan Airlines effectively went on standby and didn't fly any flights and now they are starting to come back again. you still can't book them directly with the airline.

I only found one that sells tickets in Turkmenistan, for the most part they don't, but I found one that did and I put a link to that at the end of the video, but yeah, it's great to be on board am Menan for the first time , probably the last time. I don't know if I'll ever get the chance to ride them again, but they are so Flippy and cool even though they are. a little sketchy, it's still pretty good and that's as much as flying on airlines like Turkmenistan feels really sketchy and at any point I felt like I could have been pushed aside by a scary Turkish guard.

It was fascinating to take a look at this. Hermit Kingdom, even if it was only for a few hours, the opportunity to get a flight with Turkmenistan Airlines still felt incredibly cool, even if it was a little strange, and that's the thing, because here you have a country that operates one of the largest aircraft scope of the world, the tri 7200 LR. when they don't have a single destination more than 6 hours away, have the largest Boeing 7 trip in their fleet flying with no passengers on board, and to top it all off, a $2.3 billion mega airport with barely any passengers, it all seems like a craziness. and it almost seems to this Outsider that the whole operation is a huge vanity project to make the government of Turkmenistan look a little better on the world stage because, after all, a guy who changes the name of something like Brett to His mother was probably the kind of person who had operated an entire national airline with a huge Lo to look a little better.

In any case, it wasn't long before we began our descent into Bangkok and with a round of applause we landed in Bangkok, Thailand, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Bangkok International Airport, thank you for your pleasure. I wish you all the best, thank you for your attention. My flight from Frankfurt to Bangkok with Manan Airlines cost me the bargain price of just $1,045 or just over £800. One way, which is great value for money, given that a non-stop flight from Frankfurt to Bangkok typically starts at almost double that of $1,900 for a flight with Thai Airways. I booked it with an online travel agent called turner.com who is based in Türkiye.

I'm not entirely sure how legit they are, but they seem to have tickets for sale on several lesser-known airlines like this one and I had never heard of them before I came across them searching for this flight. As far as I know, it's the only place. who sells tickets on Turkmenistan Airlines without having to go to a traditional travel agent well, we survived Turkmenistan, wow, that was great, wasn't it good? Let's go through immigration here in Bangkok, see what's happening nowadays. Good and welcome. to Bangkok in Thailand, it was a really great flight, wasn't it with Turkmenistan airlines?

I'm not sure I'd be in a hurry to try them again, but they were great anyway. If you ever get a chance to check them out, I would highly recommend it. I recommend it just once just to see what it's like anyway thank you so much for watching as always be kind to each other take care of yourselves and see you next time bye for now