Flight Review: Azerbaijan Airlines Economy Class A320 (operated by GetJet)
This is actually, not the aircraft I flew. The one this flight report refers to was a white-liveried GetJet A320.
Flight#: J28104
From: Istanbul Sabiha Gökcen (SAW)
To: Baku (GYD)
Flight time: 2h 50min
Aircraft: Airbus A320
This was my first time flying Azerbaijan Airlines. However, technically speaking the aircraft and crew were provided by GetJet, so I am not sure how much this flight review reflects the typical Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) experience.
There were some elements that were unmistakably from Azerbaijan Airlines', such as
And while most of the crew were GetJet’s, by the names I’d say mostly Lithuanians, at least one senior member of the crew appeared to be on secondment from Azerbaijan Airlines and spoke the local language.
Pre-flight experience
A curious thing about Azerbaijan Airlines is that they did not provide the option to check in online. I don’t know is this is due to regulations or to a business decision (most likely the former). Which prompted me to contact them on twitter ahead of the flight to clarify whether all was fine with my booking. To their credit, they replied quite quickly.
This created a bit of an inconvenience, because I was connecting at Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen from another flight operated by a different airline and this forced me to go through customs, then onto the departures hall to queue at the AZAL check-in counter to get my boarding pass. The whole process took me more than an hour, while it could have been entirely avoided with an online checkin.
Likewise, if there is some legal or operational reason that rules out online checkins, it would have been useful to have some sort of warning or notice on the ticket or on the website when you try to do it. This would not only save passengers some anxiety, but would also save customer support resources to the airline.
The Flight Experience
As mentioned earlier, this was a GetJet aircraf (with Lithuanian registration), a white airframe to which a decal saying “Azerbaijan Airlines” had been added to the side.
This A320 had a two-class cabin, with … business class seats (see below) and .. .economy class seats.
In addition to the huge and very spacious business class seats, some of the economy class seats on the emergency exit row provided also an enormous amount of space!
And this (below) is how the standard economy class seats look like. They are non-reclinable, but offer a pretty decent seat pitch.
I happened to get an emergency exit seat, so I had also lots of space to stretch the legs.
In terms of amenities there is little to tell.
There was no inflight entertainment (IFE) of any sort, neither was there any inflight magazine. The only frill available was the meal, lunch, which was included in the ticket and, to be fair, was pretty good.
You can see it here below: kebab with rice and roasted vegetables, salad, bread and butter, a piece of chocolate cake and drinks (wine, water, coffee).
Unlike the aircraft, the meal was certainly provided (or sourced) by Azerbaijan Airlines, possibly by the same supplier or facility in Baku that supplies the rest of its fleet.
Our Take:
This is a difficult one, since I can’t be sure what part of the experience is attributable to Azerbaijan Airlines and which part to GetJet.
The aircraft and seats were fine, nothing super fancy, but plenty of space and reasonably comfortable seats. The meal was very nice.
The pre-flight experience could improve but making it easier to check-in online and avoiding queues at the airport.
I’d say good value overall.