Istanbul Airport

✅ Trip Verified | Istanbul Airport has big ambitions but is far from the standards found at the best airports in the world. Although the building is spacious and open, passport control was fairly efficient with several gates to pass through, and bathroom facilities were modern and clean, these positives do not outweigh the many negatives. Firstly, food and drinks are extraordinarily expensive: 15 euros for a small beer, 40 euros for a kebab, 20 euros for a menu at McDonalds. For comparison, even in the most touristic areas of Istanbul, a large beer would typically cost about a third of that and would not come in a plastic cup. It just leaves you with a bitter taste of the airport seeing its visitors as walking wallets. The same vibe comes from the types of shops that occupy a large part of the airport. Maybe people willing to pay 50 euros for a simple airport meal are looking for a Louis Vuitton bag, but from the empty shops it seems that this audience is very limited. There is a huge Duty Free section, but they all sell exactly the same products. Secondly, WiFi is restricted and requires you to swipe your passport through a machine. Not only do you have no idea what is happening with that information (and why do they need my passport information in the first place?), it also just gives you one hour access. Not a standard that modern-day airports should have. Thirdly, boarding was chaotic despite our airline using boarding zones, but the gate crew did not care and just let everyone board at the same time. I would have been annoyed if I had paid for a ticket with priority boarding. Lastly, we used this airport for a city trip to Istanbul, but the airport is 40 kilometers away from the city center. That would not be such an issue if there was a simple public transport connection, but taking the metro requires you to change 4-5 times to reach downtown Istanbul, and the airport busses take 1.5 hours to reach a metro station on the outskirts of the city center. Luckily there are plenty of taxis around, but they come with a high chance of being scammed (our driver on the way back tried to make us pay twice). All in all, not the best experience.

✅ Trip Verified | Spectacular airport with very poor services and extremely expensive prices. It makes no sense to be a transit Airport and give only 1 hour free Wifi, to have to pay for luggage cart, and that the cheapest menu like McDonald's is 20€ or even more. One soft drink or water is 6€. Worse experience than in Dubai, Doha, Madrid, Paris. Really It makes no sense.

✅ Trip Verified | Firstly, this airport is big and has concourses from A to F. To get from one concourse to the other, you are required to get to a central main area. I arrived at concourse F and my next flight was from concourse B. With what might seem as a reasonable connection time, at this airport, you have to have more. There are no buses, monorails, or modes of transport from one concourse to the other. Distances are vast and it is always crowded. If you are anything thing but a fit youngster, you are in for a anxious and stressful trek after a long flight. Remember that gates close 15 minutes before departure. Now, there are these youngsters on Segways with a seat that can transport you from one gate to the other. It blew my mind that they charge US$20 for that service. There are golf carts that can take you around but they are so few given the immense distance to be covered. I wonder how many people miss their connections. One other thing that I noted was that the airport staff including those at the transfer and help desks are poor English speakers and get defensive and rude when they cannot communicate coherently. At the gates, boarding is chaotic. If you are boarding a flight to the US, the additional screening of in cabin luggage and of the person is a sham. 4-5 people are packed to small table and are asked to lay all your in cabin luggage, empty all your pockets, watches, belts, wallet, etc. There is absolutely no room and I saw people trying to sort out their cell phone from their neighbors belongings. All the while the people who are supposed to be screening are literally shouting and herding passengers through. So much for security screening. Everything at this airport is expensive. Consider that the country's inflation stands at above 60%. If you are connecting through this airport, give yourself plenty of time. There are enough distractions to lure you to shop as the airport is one big shopping mall. Stay focused or you will miss your flight. And, the ground staff are not easy to communicate with. Good luck.

✅ Trip Verified | Had one of the worst experience with Turkish Airlines at the connecting airport. No one was there to guide us further, they closed the door early. We barely made it ourselves. The airport staff was discourteous and unhospitable and critiqued elderly passengers for not speaking English while they barely could speak 2 words in English. Overall a very poor experience.

Not Verified | Limited number of seating areas. If Istanbul airport wanted to become hub for transitory passengers it has to provide adequate resting place for transitory passengers. So they can have adequate water fountains, sitting areas and mobile charging points for their layovers. After a long flight no passenger likes to sit on the floor so airport staff shouldn't be rude to such passengers instead should rightly direct them to empty seating areas.

✅ Trip Verified | A superficially impressive airport with more high end shops then anyone could possibly need. But some serious irritations. Transit was slow and cumbersome; WiFi provision was shocking - both the stingy 1 hour allocation and mechanism to activate it, plus the speed once finally confirmed. The food prices were absolutely extortionate, especially given the state of the Turkish economy. It’s as of they are trying to retrospectively fund the airport by seriously overcharging. Will avoid in future.

✅ Trip Verified | The worst airport I’ve ever visited! The foods are unreasonably expensive with so little variation. Only burgers and bread-based dishes. For example a noodle box with drink cost you 750 TL or 21 EURO. The cheapest McD meals is 18 EURO. That’s ridiculous. Also, very stingy airport with only 1 hour free WIFI. And you have to register your passport in the kiosk to have the password for the WiFi. Sometimes, the machine cannot read your passport so you have to do it over and over again. Never ever I experience something ridiculous like this in my entire life. Pay for WiFi in the airport? And you claimed to be a 5-star airport? Learn from Airports in Asia.

Not Verified | One of the worst organized Airports. Always delays and wouldn't recomment for transit. It's more a shopping mall than an Airport. Food is 3 times more expensive than any other airport.

✅ Trip Verified | I had a horrible experience at Istanbul Airport on February 25. I was there on a layover from Cairo to Seattle. The connecting flight gate was about 1,700 meters away from the arrival gate and we were short on time. Because my son needed a wheelchair, the wheelchair person said my husband and I could head to the gate and he would bring my son "fast." We ran to the gate to make sure he would not wait long for us. When we arrived, my son wasn't there and the Turkish Airlines representatives had no idea where he was. They said the company that operates the wheelchair is independent. Running around trying to find an information desk or any airport staff who could help, there was nothing. All of that while the airline was announcing "last call" for our flight. I eventually found a random wheelchair person who told me that there is a desk near Gate A2 that could help. Nope. The two people at the desk who barely spoke English had no idea, and arrogantly requested me to go back to the gate. Back at the gate, I asked to speak with airport security, they said there was no airport security except past passport control! After everyone else had boarded, and still the airline staff had no idea where my son was, he eventually showed up TERRIFIED with a group of people in a cart. It turned out they moved him from a wheelchair to a cart and made several stops to pick others. We barely made the flight. I will never fly via Istanbul again.

Not Verified | Horrible WiFi service. Only one hour free. The shops are all oversized items and expensive. Not a warm welcome feeling at all with the ambiance of the overall airport.