So I wrote about the touristy part of my trip to Istanbul a few months ago {and still reeling with so many beautiful memories of Istanbul} and left out the ‘technical’ part of the trip: visiting Turkish Do & Co and Turkish Airlines Flight Academy.

Turkish Do & Co is operating nine gourmet kitchens all over Turkey. Over 60 national and international airlines are catered from these locations. While Turkish Airlines represents 70% of the sales, British Airways, Air France, Asiana Airlines, Emirates are also among its wide range of customer portfolio.

Think about 150,000 meals being prepared in this huge hub. Every. Single. Day.

What surprised me was the fact that despite the heavy volume of work, most of the preparations are done by hand. Manual peeling and cutting of apples, for example for apple pies, etc.

What’s interesting was that the facility had mock rooms replicating actual part of Turkish Airlines’ carriers. Here at the business class section, we get to try “airplane food” as prepared by Turkish Airlines’ flying chefs – The “Flying Chef” is part of the crew and is responsible for the perfect product presentation in the Business Class on board and the culinary assistance of the flight attendants.

Photo credit: Sheila, my travel partner

It was a great insight into what goes on behind the scenes of the airline food industry. Next up: Turkish Airlines Flight Academy!

Cabin personnel undergo training during emergency, like water landing. I am glad they didn’t ask us to experience this…although that would have been cool too!

Turkish Airlines’ Flight Training Academy was founded in 1998 to provide training and consultancy services to companies, organizations and individuals in the civil aviation sector. Experienced and expert instructors train cockpit and cabin personnel at the Flight Training Center, which provides flight training of all kinds to International Civil Aviation standards.

Candidates for pilot and cabin crew receive training in simulators exactly as if they were on real airplanes at the Flight Training Center. We were excited that we could experience it as well but unfortunately, all the flight simulators were being used at that time.

How many have you been into a hangar? Not ever? Me too until Turkish Airlines took us to the hangar at the Turkish Airlines Flight Academy. A hangar is where these big jumbo jets are maintained, checked and repaired. Unfortunately, taking photos inside the hangar was not allowed due to safety issues so we only took photos outside.

Read more about my trip to Turkey here.

I was invited by Turkish Airlines along with other bloggers from the GCC (Dubai, Qatar, Egypt and Kuwait) for this Istanbul bloggers trip.  All views and opinions are mine.