Review of AJet flight from Ercan to Adana in Economy

Don't mess with turks

Hey guys and welcome to another Flight Report! 

This is FR number 4 of 6 from my Turkey trip and will cover the return portion back from Northern Cyprus. I talked about the history and current situation surrounding the unrecognized state in my outbound FR on Turkish Airlines' A350 so I won't go into detail again. 

It's a 2-legged flight I booked flying Ercan-Adana-Istanbul with Ajet. Ajet (rebranded from AnadoluJet) is a Turkish low-cost carrier fully owned and operated by Turkish Airlines. In fact, AnadoluJet wasn't a separate airline but just a trademark of Turkish Airlines (hence the 'Trademark of Turkish Airlines' line at the bottom of their logo). The airline was spun off into an independent airline in March 2024 along with a full rebrand and new livery. Gosh, I hate that new livery so much, it's so generic…

I booked this with a stopover in Adana as it's much cheaper than flying direct to Istanbul (and I'm always open to visiting a new city/airport, even for 3 hours). I saved a grand total of $10 by doing this and it was easily the worst $10 I've ever saved. I was made to regret this decision for every part of this journey, making this one of the most eventful (and unexpected) days I've ever had. 

I aim to offset all of my CO2 emissions from flights. All emissions are calculated using the ICAO Carbon Emissions Calculator and I will be funding projects approved by The Gold Standard.

Ercan International airport (ECN)

You join me on the airport shuttle. It departs every hour or so from the main bus station and takes around an hour to get to the airport. As you can see, it's very busy especially as they ran out of luggage space at the back so a lot of the luggage had to be placed in the aisle. 

Drop-off area outside.

A security check is done at the entrance. 

And here are the check-in desks. There are a lot more desks than what's needed, probably because the airport is built to handle more international flights when/if the ban is lifted (all international flights not from Turkey are banned due to an economic embargo). 

Check-in took no time and here's another photo with more unused desks on the other side.

Security took around 5 minutes and here's duty-free. 

Another photo with the escalators leading to the food court. 

Here's the food court. There's only like 3 outlets here as around 90% of the floor space is still blocked off. As I mentioned in my last FR, this is a very new terminal opened last year (I think…). However, it's still unfinished with a lot of construction still going on. 

Here are the gates. 

If you're wondering why it's so quiet, only like half of the gates are in use and they're all concentrated on the other side of the terminal - another sign of the overdesigned airport. 

A (terrible) view of the apron. 

THE FLIGHT

Flight time today to Adana will only be 40 minutes and here's our route (no tracking for the approach into ADA, disappointingly): 

Boarding started pretty much on time and here are the seats onboard. 

As expected, they're not very comfortable with little padding. 

Legroom is at least decent - at least for a LCC. 

First views out of the window. 

Our plane (TC-JZJ) is a 13 year-old 737, which you can tell just by looking at the overhead panel. 

Pushback around 10 minutes late (at 15:30). 

And here is where the regret begins. We sat here for around 30 minutes with the A/C off. For those who have never been to Cyprus in Summer, temperatures at this time of the day reach around 40°C so you can imagine what it's like in the cabin during that time. Now, I've been in similar situations in other countries however I've never seen a more rowdy crowd than a plane filled with 150+ Turks. I felt really sorry for the crew as there were a couple of passengers that started shouting at them (in Turkish so I had no idea what they were saying) while the rest of the cabin cheered them on and applauded. 

It got so bad that the captain actually came out to try to resolve the issue, only to be forced back into the flight deck with what felt like the entire cabin shouting at him. 

At around 16:00, another Ajet flight landed and decided to vacate the runway right next to us. This forced the captain to move our plane… right back to the gate. 

The second the plane parked, pretty much the entire cabin got up and demanded to be let out. I still have no idea what's happening the entire time as all the announcements and stuff was in Turkish. My guess is a technical fault with as we started up engines without the APU and the AC remained off the entire time.

Yeah, it's at this point that I'm seriously questioning my life choices, especially after another 2 planes left departing for Istanbul. I've got no idea what to do if I miss my connection at Adana. Obviously Ajet would've had to rebook me but I really didn't fancy spending a night in a random city. 

After another 40 minutes (with the A/C on this time, which calmed the passengers down massively), there was an announcement (in Turkish) followed by cheers. I (rightly) guess that the issue had been fixed and sure enough, 5 minutes later we pushed back again. Thankfully, it's only a 90-minute delay, which means that I'll still make my connecting flight. Hooray! 

Oh and by the way… yes. That's the Ajet that we saw land in front of us. And yes, that plane is going to Istanbul. And yes, we had to wait 3 minutes for her to taxi down the runway to takeoff. Guess this is what I get when I try to save $10… right? 

"You either have to laugh or cry. I prefer to laugh." - Marjorie Pay Hinckley

But finally, takeoff! Bye bye Northern Cyprus! 

Not a lot to see as we climb to our cruising altitude. 

Last view of the island as we enter the Mediterranean. 

And only a few minutes later, first views of Turkey! 

Let's have a look at the contents of the seatback pocket, which includes a safety card…

… and an air sickness bag. I don't think Ajet offers a buy-onboard service, although I may be wrong. 

The new and unopened Çukurova International Airport (CUV) it'll serve as a replacement to Adana (ADA). 

Views of the city as we start our descent. 

Seyhan Reservoir North of the city. 

We pretty much did a 180° to head back over the city again. 

On final approach with a canal below. 

Seyhan River can be seen on the left along with Adana railway station on the right. 

Welcome to…. oh… I guess we're going around! As this flight wasn't eventful enough, we just had to chuck in a go-around with it. We pretty much had everything this flight except a rejected takeoff… fun! 

Climbing back over some fields. 

The same view once again. 

Finally! After what felt like forever, welcome to Adana! We arrived around 1 hour 40 minutes late. 

Parked at the gate. 

Adana Şakirpaşa Airport

Walking to arrivals. Departures can be seen on the right. 

Immigration took around 10 minutes and here's the car park outside. 

Now normally, this is where I'll end this FR. I didn't take any more photos as I didn't intend on writing an FR on the 2nd leg (same airline and at night) but I'm gonna write a quick summary of that flight as it was (almost) as eventful as this one. 

Because of the delay from the ECN-ADA flight, I had 2 hours before my Istanbul flight. It was pretty uneventful and boarding started on time. Once boarding finished, the captain informed us that there was a 'minor' issue with the route so there'd be a 'small' delay. Those were pretty huge understatements as we ended up sitting on the ground for 90 minutes with another group of rowdy Turks demanding water and information. We eventually pushed back and departed around 2 hours late. 

I honestly can't believe my bad luck today. It was supposed to be 2 short and (rather dull) flights across Turkey but it ended up being a massive mess with delays, technical issues, and go-arounds. I guess the lesson from today should be don't be a dumb dumb (like me) and actually pick a sensible option for flights. Oh, and don't mess with Turks. 

Thanks for reading! ;)