More than just a means of transportation, national airlines often serve as cultural ambassadors, offering a first glimpse into their homeland through myriad details: design, hospitality, service, and even entertainment. In the first of a new regular series, we look at those airlines that bring their origins to life in ways we often don’t even realise, beginning with Turkish Airlines.
Conveying culture
Turkish Airlines took its current name in 1955, eight years after making its first international flight from İstanbul to Athens. Today, it holds the world record for the number of countries it flies to (131), having also built a reputation for offering value-for-money economy fares and attentive service in Business. What is often overlooked is how it tries to bring Turkish culture into the cabin.
New seating incorporates local design elements such as rose-gold finishing and marble-topped console tables, while the anthracite-grey and dark-red colouring of the crew uniforms was inspired by everything from Turkish glassware to the Bosphorus. The tulip, a traditional symbol of beauty and perfection in Turkish art, adorns fabrics and the exterior and interior of the aircraft fuselage.
Even the amenity kits in Business draw on sights you’ll see across Türkiye. Adorned with ebru marbling, a traditional art form where colours are applied to thickened water – you’ll find plenty of ebru workshops in İstanbul’s Sultanahmet district – the cases also depict local World Heritage sites, including Ephesus, Göbeklitepe and the head sculptures on Mount Nemrut.
A taste of… Türkiye
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The à la carte chef service on long-haul flights is iconic (Alamy) -
The airline claims to serve ‘the world’s oldest bread’, utilising Turkish wheat varietals that date back some 12,000 years (Turkish Airlines)
International and local cuisine is available in both cabins, but it’s the Turkish cuisine and famous onboard chef service that stands out. Regional appetisers, including char-grilled Adana kebabs, are served on seasonal menus in Business, where the Flying Chefs programme lights up long-haul flights, offering à la carte cooking in a tiny space. If anything conveys a sense of Türkiye, it’s the scent of cumin in the air.
In practical terms, we like the Dine on Demand option, which is available on overnight intercontinental flights, allowing passengers to select when to eat rather than being woken up or missing out entirely. Meals are then finished with Turkish coffee and a traditional chaser: a rose-scented nugget of Turkish delight.
The bread served to passengers in Business is particularly noteworthy. The airline collaborated with a food historian and academic to develop a recipe prepared using the planet’s two oldest domesticated wheat varietals, cultivated in the Taş Tepeler region nearly 12,000 years ago.
Cultural primers
The in-flight entertainment system (known as Planet) is a good way to bone up on popular culture. Recent featured Turkish TV series have ranged from the button-pushing documentary Sıfır Atık (Zero Waste) to historical epic Mehmet: Fetihler Sultani (Mehmet: Sultan of Conquest), about the embattled Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II, offering some wide-ranging touchstones.
The audio entertainment has an even broader view of local culture, with everything from pop and poetry readings to jazz by the İstanbul-born pianist and singer Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol.
Reading material, including travel inspiration and practical tips for Türkiye and beyond, is supplied via the Turkish Airlines blog. You also have access to Turkish newspapers, including Hürriyet, in English via the PressReader app (as well as, ahem, Wanderlust).
Happy landings
If you’re just passing through, Touristanbul offers a complimentary tour of the cultural and historical sights in the Turkish capital to international passengers with layovers of six to 24 hours. This includes airport pick-ups and drop-offs.
Alternatively, İstanbul’s huge Turkish Airways Lounge lets you browse books in its library and dine on well-known Turkish specialties, such as pide and gözleme (stuffed flatbreads), at the cooking stations.
The numbers
15,000km
The Istanbul-Sydney service via Kuala Lumpur became the longest route in Turkish Airways’ network last December.
100+
Turkish Airlines aircraft with Airconnect in-flight connectivity. This will expand to 800 by 2033
350+
flight destinations, including new routes to Damascus, Syria; Santiago, Chile; and a service to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, that starts on 10 Dec 2025.
