New Turkmenistan flight from Malpensa opens 'alternative' route to Vietnam
Starting next March 6, Turkmenistan Airlines will inaugurate a weekly connection between Milan Malpensa and the country's capital, Ashgabat. It [...]
MXP
From the next March 6, Turkmenistan Airlines will inaugurate a weekly connection between Milan Malpensa and the country's capital, Ashgabat. It is one of the most 'exotic' airlines, among those flying to Italy, since it Turkmenistan is one of the least known of the seven states in the world (Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) whose name ends with the suffix 'stan,' meaning 'land.'
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Geographically it is located on the southeastern shore of the Caspian Sea and has Russia, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Iran as neighbors. It has a population of about 6 million, of which just over a million live in the capital Ashgabat.
From Milan Malpensa Flight T5 442 will take off every Wednesday evening at 7:20 p.m. with arrival at 5:05 a.m. the next day. From Ashgabat to Milan we fly always on Wednesday with departure at 3:20 p.m. and landing at Malpensa at 5:20 p.m.. The connection will be operated with one of the three Boeing 777-200LR (Long Range) of Turkmenistan Airlines, set up in two classes for 291 seats, 28 of which are in a business class cabin of 4 rows with Seven seats per row in a 2+3+2 layout (obsolete, but it is actually the same as that offered on its Boeing 777s also by Turkish Airlines).
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The Turkmen company has a fleet of 14 airplanes, made mostly of Boeing 737-800s and Boeing 737-700s, into which a Boeing 777-300ER (with another expected in weeks) ex-Cathay Pacific in three classes of service used on the flights to Beijing and Bangkok. Milan will be only the fourth European city in its network, after Istanbul, Frankfurt and London (Heathrow).
The flight from Malpensa Is attractive to travelers from northern Italy because offers a connection to Ho Chi Minh City, the southern Vietnamese city which Turkmenistan Airlines will start serving again from the beginning of March.
The flight is particularly convenient on the outward journey because, after landing in Ashgabat shortly after 5 a.m. on Thursday morning, it departs for Vietnam at 7:40 a.m., arriving in Ho Chi Minh City at 5:20 p.m. On the return, the connection is less immediate: leaving Vietnam every Wednesday at 3:30 a.m., you land in Turkmenistan at 9:15 a.m., with departure to Milan scheduled for 3:20 p.m.
What to do in those six hours? Sure, you can rest or sleep at the airport. Or, if the country (which only reopened its borders in March this year) will restore the 'transit visa', indulge a lightning tour of the city, which is just a few kilometers from the ultra-modern airport.Ashgabat is a monument-city commissioned by Sapurmat Niyazov, the man who ruled the country continuously from the fall of the USSR in 1991 until 2022.
For those who have been to Kazakhstan, it is inspired by Nur-Sultan, the former Astana: grand and monumental boulevards, phantasmagorical palaces, equally jaw-dropping monuments. In particular, Ashgabat boasts a Guinness record as the city with the most buildings clad in white Carrara marble: 543 totaling 4.5 million square meters of marble. Thus are made the presidential palace, those of the ministries, several mosques topped with colorful domes and the world's largest covered Ferris wheel, 95 meters high and costing a whopping 170 million euros.
