Review: Royal Jordanian A330 Economy from Istanbul to Amman

I had been planning a trip to Turkey for a while but in the weeks leading up to it I wanted to add another destination. Enter Jordan.

I’ve always wanted to visit Jordan especially after seeing countless videos on social media of Petra, Wadi Rum, and of course all the amazing food it has to offer.

Now I knew I would already be in Istanbul after taking a flight via Warsaw on LOT Polish Airlines. I had about 7 days where I can add another destination and given Jordan was a quick 2 hour flight I was sold.

Royal Jordanian and Turkish Airlines were the only 2 to operate non stop flights. Given the times of departure I chose Royal Jordanian, a Oneworld Alliance airline, and I was excited to try a new airline.

Note: I reviewed this flight from IST to AMM on our review platform and you can review it there as well.

Booking Process

With any flight I am booking the question always is: points or cash? I don’t usually use points for short haul trips and I also don’t often fly Oneworld airlines so I was a bit new to this.

I did find the option to fly into Amman for only 15,000 Air Canada Aeroplan points if I decided to fly Turkish Airlines but I really wanted to try Royal Jordanian.

Given I didn’t have many options for a point booking – I went with a cash fare that was about $350 round trip in economy.

After booking and a few days before departure, I did get an email asking if I wanted to upgrade.

Like many airline, Royal Jordanian offers a bid to upgrade program that allows you to submit an offer to move up a cabin.

I was tempted but given the short flight I decided it wasn’t worth it.

Flight Experience

The flight was departing Istanbul Airport domestic terminal, which is an impressive airport in itself.

I didn’t have any checked bags so the check in process was very smooth.

There was some confusion with my mobile boarding pass – I was issued one online prior but the agents at the gate seemed confused when I showed it to them. They then printed me a boarding pass and eventually I was able to get on.

Upon boarding the A330, I passed through the business class cabin. It actually looked pretty comfortable and I was kind of regretting not at least bidding for an upgrade.

I had to remind myself its only 2 hours and made my way back to economy.

The economy cabin is split into 3-3 and Royal Jordanian had an interesting color scheme with every 3 rows having a red seat. Not sure what this meant but it added a nice touch to the cabin.

I settled back into my row in economy and I was about in the middle of the plane. This was going to be a full flight and these economy seats were a little rough.

The seat padding is not very thick and the legroom is a bit tight. Again, no big deal for a 2 hour flight but going a bit longer this fight could be a little uncomfortable.

Then came the meal service – always a surprise when you are used to flying US airlines that only serve snack boxes even on 5+ hour flights.

I can’t remember if there was an option for the meal but interesting to get a dish that says “mexican rice”. I was expecting something very Jordanian but upon opening it was similar to a US airline meal.

The dish was a basic chicken over rice with some additional veggies. It was served with a dessert, water, and a juice.

The chicken and rice dish was a little dry but to be honest I can’t complain of a hot meal service on such a short flight.

I did get to try this apple juice that was very sweet. I find it common in places like Jordan, Turkey, and other countries to have overly sweet drinks. I tried a bit but didn’t have too much of it.

Summary & Takeaways

Overall, this was a short flight in economy so hard to get a full impression of Royal Jordanian. It feels like there was a bit of confusion in the pre boarding process with the airport staff but once onboard everything went smooth.

I’d like to try them out again but they have a relatively small footprint so maybe it’ll be a bit of time but I’ll certainly give them another go.