Flight: Air Albania ZB 1001
From: Tirana (TIA) To: Istanbul (IST)
I flew with Air Albania from Tirana to Istanbul. I compared flights on Skyscanner , and this was the best option to IST (I didn’t want to fly to SAW). There were two flights available with Air Albania, so I went with the morning flight. I’ve never flown with Air Albania before either, so that was another selling point (I’m always looking to try different airlines).
I booked on the Air Albania website, and there were the usual extras to click through to get to the price. Baggage was already included so I didn’t add extras.
The total price was 11,813 ALL (about $107 USD).
The flight was too early for the airport bus, so I got a taxi from the city centre for 2050 ALL ($18.50 USD). I was there early so I checked in first and it was a smooth process. A covid test wasn’t required for flying to Turkey.
Tirana International Airport is not very busy, so when I saw this Air Albania aircraft I thought it was the one we would fly on.
It turns out though that we were flying on a Turkish Airlines aircraft. Technically this was an Air Albania flight as it had the Air Albania flight code, but it didn’t feel like I was flying with Air Albania without flying in Air Albania metal.
There are no airbridges at Tirana, so we walked to the aircraft.
We were given a hygiene kit once onboard, which was branded with Air Albania.
The aircraft had inflight entertainment units that weren’t in use.
I wasn’t sure if there would be any type of meal service onboard, so I had eaten at the airport. We were served a light meal.
Breakfast was a small sandwich, a cake, and a strawberry yogurt drink.
ZB 1001 departs from TIA at 7:20 and arrives at IST at 11:00, for a total flying time of 1H, 40M. The flight arrived on time at the massive new Istanbul Airport.
The airport wasn’t busy so immigration and baggage claim was quick.
Overall this was a good flight option from Tirana to Istanbul.
