We arrived at the airport at around 4 o'clock, but we were not alone: there was a traffic jam starting just after the bridge at the airport. Check-in went quite fast, but because it was for the flight to Antalya and to Izmir, there was quite a long queue.
After going trough the security check (where we had to take off our shoes, which is a new rule it seems) we drank some coffee and went to the gate. As runway 02 was in use, we had a beautiful view of the arriving aircraft.
Boarding started at 5:30, which was right on time. Everything went smooth and we pushed back on time as well. We pushed on taxiway U while company's other traffic was pushed on T.
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During taxi we had an amazing sight of the morning rush, which always leaves a great impression. We also saw the newest JAF B737, OO-JAS (sorry for the blurry picture)
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Take off was smooth, after take off we were able to enjoy a beautiful sunrise.
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Breakfast was served: eggs with potato's, but it wasn't tasty at all. Only the small bread was nice.
Also, leg room was absolutely not comfortable. I'm not that tall, but I wasn't even able to sit in normal position. For flights of such duration, legroom must have been much, much better!
During flight, we were able to visit the cockpit, which was quite a surprise I must say. We had a spectacular view, but unfortunately we were not allowed to take any pictures. After a short chat with the pilots we returned to our seats and they started the descend into Antalya.
We made a right hand circuit for runway 36C, the view of the airport was really nice, too bad it was quite hazy at the time.
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After a quite hard touchdown we taxied to our gate. A lot of Russian aircraft were parked on the apron, nice to see some of these aircraft.
Just a small sidenote: the aircraft had to stop for about 1 minute on the taxiway, and without the 'Fasten-seatbelt' sign being switched off, almost all passengers started taking their luggage out of the overhead bins, and it took a long time before any of the cabin crew told them to remain seated. Of course this is dangerous and is frustrating
Overall, the flight was quite nice. The whole crew was very polite, but the food and legroom could have been a lot better, even for an airline like Freebird.
The view was just amazing, but too bad we weren't allowed to take any pictures.
