Review of Turkmenistan Airlines flight from Ashgabat to Bangkok in Economy

A carefully curated façade

Hello and welcome to another Flight Report!

This FR will be the 2nd leg of my journey between Milan and Bangkok with Turkmenistan Airlines. I went through the background and booking process in my first FR so feel free to check that out. This flight will be on the Boeing 777-200LR, which is a weird choice of aircraft. The LR (or Long Range) variant of the -200 is one of the longest-range commercial airliners available, increasing the already impressive range of the ER (Extended Range) variant. The LR was designed to serve ultra-long-haul routes such as LA to Singapore, something that Turkmenistan clearly doesn't do. I'm not sure if they planned on flying to the USA or Australia when they ordered it (or if they just got a good discount from Boeing), but it does make them one of only nine airlines currently flying the type (as of November 2025). Along with the -200LR, Turkmenistan also operates another two former Cathay Pacific Boeing 777-300ERs.

As mentioned in my first FR, I paid €300 ($350) for a single flying MXP-ASB-BKK, which is a pretty decent price. Included with the price are 2 20kg bags per person.

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.

Ashgabat International Airport (ASB)

You join me in the departures lobby after my flight from Milan. There's a ticket check and (very light) security for transiting passengers.

I didn't know what to expect when I booked this itinerary with a stop in Ashgabat Airport. What I wasn't expecting, however, is it to be one of the prettiest airports I've been to. 

For a lot of countries, their airport serves as an image of their nation. No country represents that more than Turkmenistan. Ashgabat presents itself as one of the prettiest cities in the world, filled with marble buildings, golden monuments, and perfectly maintained gardens. In fact, the city tries so hard to maintain that perfect image, it has banned all non-white and gold cars from its streets. There's a reason the city's described as a mix between Las Vegas and Pyongyang. 

Here are the departures for the day. 

The airport gives people a glimpse into Turkmenistan's carefully curated image, at least for those who don't wanna fork out thousands for a tour guide to visit the country. 

The interior feels so well designed, with the way the green (which is the national color of Turkmenistan, representing the country's carpet industry) fits around the gold and white.

And here's the end of the terminal. It's never used considering the lack of flights. 

There are a lot of security guards scattered around the airport, which made me feel rather uneasy, especially as they were watching me walk around taking photos of the empty gates.

The flight

Flight time to Bangkok will be around 6 hours and here's our route across Asia:

Photo of the economy cabin. Yes! Turkmenistan is one of the very few airlines to still fly the 777 with a 3-3-3 config. This reminds me of my flight on Air India with the same config… although that cabin was in very poor condition (it should be refurbished into 3-4-3 by now). 

Some information about our plane:

Type: Boeing 777-200LR
Registration: EZ-A778
First flight: 19 February 2014
Age: ~12 years
Config: C28/Y263

Luckily, this cabin is much newer. Here's the IFE (which we'll look at later) and tray table.

The legroom is also amazing! This is one of the best I've seen - a huge plus for long-haul flights! 

View out of the window. I requested a window seat during check-in. Unfortunately, it's not a great view with the wing taking up most of the space. 

You can see a Turkmenistan Boeing 777-300ER heading to Beijing (PEK) taxiing on the right.

Pushback around 15 minutes late. 

Nice view of the terminal. It's as pretty on the outside as it is on the inside.

Takeoff! Bye bye Turkmenistan. 

Nice view of Ashgabat as we turn East towards Uzbekistan.

Shortly after takeoff, the crew came around with breakfast. 

Here it is. There wasn't a choice. It was sausages with pasta. Like with the meal on my flight from Milan, it was very, very bland.

However, it was kinda made up for by this massive tray of food. I'll list it. It includes: a bun, a sponge cake, fresh tomatoes and cucumber with mozzarella, some meat slices with cheese (it was weird, and I left it alone), a slice of almond bread (tasted very plastic-y), and a jam… biscuit… sandwich… thingy. Yeah, it's quite a weird assortment of food, but there's so much in there. 

And here's the biscuit. It's quite literally 2 biscuits with some jam in between. Never seen anything like it before, but it's quite nice. 

Sunrise somewhere over Afghanistan. Most Western countries have banned their airlines from flying in/out of Afghanistan due to safety concerns. However, most of them still allow overflights above 30,000ft-33,000ft (depending on the country). 

Let's have a look at the IFE:

I'll start by mentioning that the touchscreen is pointless - it doesn't register 95% of the time. Fortunately, there is a remote so it's not a huge issue (but it does make it rather slow to use). There are around 50 movies and 100 TV shows - it's not great, but it's much, much better than what I was expecting. There's also a good selection of Turkmenistan Movies, which is very unique. Turkmenistan isn't really a country that's talked about… ever… so it's fascinating getting a glimpse into their culture on this trip. I'd love to visit the country one day, although their visa requirement are rather strict.

The moving map is unavailable, which is a shame. 

Still a ton of clouds as we approach the Pakistan - India border. 

After that, I slept for around 2 hours and was woken up by the crew coming around with a pre-landing snack. 

And here it is. It's a carton of peach juice and a croissant sandwich with meat and cheese. It's pretty basic, but it wasn't too bad. The catering on this flight has been mediocre at best, but that's standard for smaller airlines like this. Honestly, the food's edible, which is good enough for me. ;)

Still a ton of clouds as we start our descent into Bangkok. The rainy season in Thailand runs from May to October, with September having the most rain. It sounds bad, but it really isn't. The weather would be fine for most of the day, except for 2-3 hours when bucketloads of water would get dumped on the city. It's pretty easy to avoid as you can see the clouds coming from miles away. It's also much, much cooler compared to the start of the year. I stayed in Bangkok for a month and didn't find the weather to be a big hindrance to my plans (especially towards the end of the month). 

Descending through the clouds.

I love this photo so much. You can see all the cloud layers with the sky above and the land below.

Flying into the heart of the rain as we approach the runway. 

Welcome to Thailand! It was a pretty bumpy landing - the cloud ceiling was around 1000ft with some pretty hefty wind gusts. I'm amazed we didn't go around!

A terrible photo of the terminal building. We landed during the worst of the rain - it stopped by the time I was leaving the airport, around an hour later. 

Parked at the gate with a Gulf Air Boeing 787-9 heading to Bahrain (BAH) on the right. I should mention that there was a 30-minute delay between the seatbelt signs coming off and actually disembarking. There was no announcement as to why, but everyone was lined up in the aisles ready to go for ages. 

Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK)

Walking to immigration. 

The walk took close to 15 minutes, which is one of the longest I've had between the gates and immigration.  

Immigration took around 5 minutes and here's the baggage reclaim area.

My bag was already on the belt when I got here, which is seriously impressive for a large airport like this.

And here's the arrivals floor landside. 

The pick-up/drop-off area outside. 

I'll end this FR here. As I mentioned earlier, I'm staying in Bangkok for a month with a short trip up North to Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai in the middle. I would include a tourism bonus normally… but I've got over 300 photos to edit and I'm too lazy to do it all before this comes out (I'll include it later on in the series). Thanks for reading and I'll see you in the next FR!!!