Flying Home

It was eventually time to fly home.

The cheapest flight from Athens to Dulles happened to be on Turkish Airlines. I’ve never flown Turkish Air before, so I didn’t know what to expect. The flight included a 3-hour layover in Istanbul. When I first looked at that I even considered extending our trip a few more days so we could spend that time in Istanbul, but reconsidered when I thought about how tired we would be after 5 weeks on the road. I’m sorry we didn’t take the opportunity now, though.

The flight east to Istanbul would mean that we had an 11½ hour flight to Dulles. That’s a long time on a plane. But with our lounge pass, we looked forward to some good food and a few drinks in a relaxing atmosphere before we boarded.

Extra Security for Americans

Since we flew from Athens on Turkish Air, we expected to merely stay in the International terminal and get to our gate 40 minutes early. However, upon arrival, we saw signs that US and Canadian nationals needed to follow a special path. We did and were ushered through security again. I wondered if there is some special travel warning regarding Canadians and Americans.

We made our way to the lounge, passing through one of the nicest airports we’ve ever seen. It felt more like an upscale shopping mall than like an airport. There were a staggering number of stores, restaurants, elite designers, and of course women in headscarves. We settled into the lounge, one of severakl to choose from, helped ourselves to the buffet, plugged in our devices, and waited for our gate assignment.

"Go to Gate"

When the gate was announced, it was accompanied by a flashing note of “Go to Gate.” I ignored this for a while since it was way early. I let it go for about 15 minutes before I decided I needed to go to the gate to take a look. I went to the gate and sure enough, there was a line of people waiting to go in. I asked what was happening and was told this was passport control and that we needed to get in line. I went back and got Lexie and Lisa (who was annoyed at having to leave the lovely lounge and its open bar) and we made our way to the gate.

We got in line, passed through the passport check, and then Lisa and Lexie were ushered into the other, female only, line. We went through yet another security check, where we were all thoroughly patted down by security people of our own gender. After that, it was directly onto a bus, which took us to the plane, which was on the tarmac and boarding. We never would have made it if we had gotten to the gate 40 minutes prior, as was printed on our boarding pass.

New Istanbul Airport

On takeoff, the pilot mentioned that a new Istanbul International Airport had opened only a week before, becoming the largest airport in the world. The airport we passed through was stunning, but I don’t think we were in the new one, which appears to have been handling only domestic flights on the day of our departure. Nonetheless, I was surprised to learn that Istanbul is the 11^th busiest airport in the world and 5^th busiest in Europe.

Bye bye, Europe!

I’m still somewhat confused about exactly what was happening, security-wise, at the airport. (Lisa did some research and found that there had been a terror attack in 2016 that killed 41 people, necessitating higher security. And of course, the fact that it’s a Muslim country explained the separate sex pat-down lines.)  But we did make it home, and we definitely plan to return to Istanbul for a visit.

It was a great flight. There was a great selection of entertainment options and free movies, and we were each provided with a little kit with eye mask, slippers and toothbrush. We had a blanket, pillow and higher-quality headphones, not just earbuds. We were also served to meals with a limited selection of free alcoholic beverages. 

Altogether, it was a nice way to end our trip.