Turkish Airlines wide body layovers, ranked by a crew member with three years of them: the 48s, the 24s, and the one everyone bids
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#1 Istanbul, wide body, three years, and the Turkish Airlines network is the widest in the world, which means the layover list is the longest in the world, which means every crew member has a ranking. Here is mine. Fight me in the replies.
The 48s that everyone bids
Tokyo. The crew hotel, the convenience store food, the 6am walk in a city that is clean and quiet and strange. The one bid everyone puts first.
Buenos Aires. Far, long, and the crew who get it come back different. The steak, the city, the 48 that feels like a holiday.
Toronto and Montreal in summer. The Canadian crew hotels are good and the cities are easy and the crew community from Istanbul has friends there.
Johannesburg with the 48. The safari day trips the crew organise between themselves. Nobody bids Johannesburg for the city. Everyone bids it for the day trip.
The 24s that are worth it
Bangkok, because 24 hours in Bangkok is a full day if you do not sleep. Singapore, clean and quick and the hawker centre next to the hotel. Amsterdam, the walk along the canals and the crew who know the bakery. Casablanca, for the Moroccan crew and for everyone else who has been adopted by the Moroccan crew.
The ones that are the job
The Gulf turns. The Central Asian cities in winter. The African routes with a hotel that is fine and a city you are advised not to walk in. These are the roster. They pay the same. They are why the Tokyo exists.
The one everyone bids and cannot get
New York with a 48. The crew who have it have had it for a decade. It comes up once a year for the rest of us and the bid is a lottery. I have had it once. I understand.
The honest ranking
The best layover is the one where you sleep well and see one thing. By that measure Tokyo wins, Bangkok is close, and the small Central Asian city where you slept ten hours and saw a market is not far behind. The city matters less than the crew and the sleep.
Your ranking, from the Turkish network or any other.
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#2 Same fleet, and Tokyo first is correct and I will not argue. I would move Casablanca up for the reason you give: the Moroccan crew adopt everyone and the medina walk at dusk is one of the best on the network.
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#3 Narrow body, three years, so my ranking is Trabzon, Antalya, Diyarbakır and Erzurum, and Antalya wins because there is a beach and a night stop hotel with a pool. This thread is a window into another life. One day.
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#4 Also narrow body and I have done exactly one wide body layover as a supernumerary and it was Bangkok and I did not sleep and I saw the city and Aylin is right that 24 hours in Bangkok is a full day.
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#5 @skyhigh94 the wide body course is worth every domestic sector. Antalya has a pool. Tokyo has a country. Come across.
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#6 JAL, Tokyo based, and reading a foreign crew ranking my city first at 6am on a walk is a strange and lovely thing. The convenience store food is the best in the world and I am glad the world knows.
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#7 Qatar, and the 'best layover is the one where you sleep well and see one thing' rule is universal and it is the correct measure. By it, my ranking is Melbourne, then Tokyo, then a small Indian city where I slept ten hours. Same conclusion.
