Istanbul Airport

Not Verified | Airport is quite nice and clean but it is a real, real rip off. It is ridiculously expensive. A mars bar costs $6. A big mac on it's own $11. A small beer $11. Absolutely crazy prices. Never seen that in any airport and I travel a lot.

Not Verified |  The customer service here is very bad. The staff lack communication ability in English, not friendly. The airport is large and clean but lacks information desks, lacks water fountains. The walk from one gate to the next is far and there no transportation system to take from area to area. The food here is very expensive, almost makes one get upset expensive and to top it off the staff don’t communicate well.

Not Verified | Flew from Istanbul to Heathrow. Arrived at airport around 3 hours before departure. We proceeded through the baggage check which went smoothly, then proceeded to the check-in counters for UK bound flights. Which seemed to again have an additional identity check. At Check in our bags were overweight however the staff was happy to let us go without charging extra or ordering removal of items. Proceeded through immigration and then security check again which I must say is a state of art facility. Unlike Heathrow you don’t need to remove anything from your baggage saving the hassle. The airport itself is designed beautifully. One of the best I've been to. We then proceeded to the gate where we sat for nearly 3 hours because of significant delays to our flight - However that was all compensated when Turkish Airlines surprised us with a free business Class upgrade.

✅ Trip Verified | Airport looks modern, new and clean, but walking times are long. The biggest issue are the prices of the food courts. Everything is extremely expensive and the markup is criminal. We ordered a burger, regular fries + sauce from shakeshack which costed around 28 euros!

Not Verified | Had a 5hr layover during an international flight and was required to go through security twice - once upon arrival from Amman, and again before boarding the plane to the US. The second time we were patted down. The airport is huge without transportation to get you from one end to the other. Moreover there is almost no seating. We were given our gate only an hr before boarding so spent 4 exhausting hrs wandering around their mall.

✅ Trip Verified | The airport looks really nice and I understand that a lot of money has gone into it. However, the prices here for everything especially food are daylight robbery. I paid £7 for a slice of pizza and a meal at Popeyes costs an eye watering £15.00. Just bring your own food or better yet just wait until you board the plane and hope that you don’t starve yourself to death.

Not Verified | Not much seating near shopping. Not many water fountains for drinking water. Flight and gate announced only 30 mins prior boarding not giving enough time. Unfriendly staff, unable to help, with rude behaviour.

✅ Trip Verified | Disproportionately large airport. Starting with the taxi times that planes take from landing to gate or from gate to takeoff. Impossible to catch a connecting flight with less than two hours available. Buddy service not always available. All services are expensive. There are few seats where you can rest compared to the number of passengers. One hour of free wifi, then you pay for a poor connection. If you want to spend some time visiting the museum you have to pay 13 euros, a museum accessible only to travellers. (I have no comments on the museum because I refused to pay). 8 euros for a cappuccino made with UHT milk and 4 euros peu a baklava (a piece, not a pack). Terminal signage is excellent. Staff at the gate often rude.

Not Verified | No seats or recliners or any kind of seating available at the airport. So many people were just sitting on the floor. For 8 hours of transit we sat on a small couch near a coffee shop, with kids. Taking turns on sitting. Travelling with toddler with no sitting for 8 hours of transit. It was a very bad experience with such a big airport which had luxury showrooms. Lounges only for members. Boarding was do confusing. No lines, no line for families. Disgusting and sad experience.

✅ Trip Verified | The airport is a shopping mall and not made for comfy transit. Very few seats and they display the gate only 30 minutes before departure. Good only if you have a 3 hours+ stopover, you are fit and you are not travelling with children, it can take 20 minutes at a good pace from your arrival gate to the transfer area, and then another 20 minutes to your new gate. I cannot understand how Turkish Airlines is selling connecting flights with less than 90 minutes connection. They sold a ticket to me with 65 minutes connection! Worst thing is if you miss a connection and you are relocated on a flight the day after, you are going to be assigned an hotel far away (in my case 45 km far away). In fact there are very few hotels near the airport. Just the 300 euros per night Yotel and a Radisson 10km away (also with a rate of 600 euros when I checked on the day I missed the connection). Turkish Airlines business lounge is very nice though. So I would only recommend to transit here if you have 3hours + connection and access to lounges.