Istanbul Airport

Not Verified | I give this the Worst airport ever. Duty free more expensive then Champs Elysees Paris, the food 3 times expensive then any airport in Europe! Workers behaving so poorly and rude, no free internet after 1 hour, no free trolley.

✅ Trip Verified | Unacceptable long waiting time to get through passport control and security check it took almost an hour. Extremely expensive food of a mediocre quality

Not Verified | Istanbul Airport is without doubt the worst and least friendly airport I have ever transited. My wife and I were Business Class back to Heathrow. On check in we were given no directions to the fast track lane and there was no signage, to the point it can't exist. It took us a full 90 minutes to transit passport and security (my wife struggles when standing for long periods) Having passed security (very curt) we walked some distance to the BA allocated Business Lounge, only to find queues to get in and no room to site down when we did. There was little time left as the gate was called open, so grabbing two bottles of water we walked the full distance to our gate, to find two staff and no plane. We found somewhere to sit until the board changed to boarding (although entitled to the business class lounge, the distance and packed lounge did not engender either of us with the desire or energy to return). As an International Airport which suggests it is the largest in Europe (this can only be by area, because there are certainly nowhere near the flight numbers to compete with the largest airports in Europe) it is very poor. If I was a Turkish Tax payer I would be asking serious questions as to why this white elephant is so large and they wan't it to be the largest in the World (Why). I will never transit this airport again.

✅ Trip Verified | One of the worst transfer experiences I’ve ever had. On landing, taxiing time was almost 1 hour. We had to walk for miles to reach first the transit controls, and then our gate. At transit controls our duty free purchases from the departure airport were challenged, and had to argue to keep them. The duty free was a total rip off, 8 pieces of fresh baklavas came at €35! Staff were unfriendly as extremely slow. Finally, the boarding process required our passport and boarding pass to be checked three times by three different agents, standing in a queue for another thirty minutes. Overall a surreal and extremely unpleasant experience.

✅ Trip Verified | Ground staff lacking respect, ignored when approach them for help, arrogant and very disorganised in dealing with transit passengers and passengers with assistance. I was a business class passenger who required wheel chair assistance and my husband was my carer but travelled in economy. It was noted that he needed assistance for travelling distance but was never given. I was put on the mobile buggy to reach connecting flight but the driver said my husband could not come with me and nor would he be picked up at all. I objected and he and I had verbal altercation and I was ordered off the buggy or he would not go anywhere with me and I would miss the flight. I was forced to get off and was kindly picked up by a wheelchair. I am 76 and use walking stick. My husband had to carry the walk on baggage fir me and himself. The driver wanted to plonk the carry on baggage on my lap. I cannot carry weight on my legs due to many spinal surgeries. Also I had tried to approach a staff member to ask a question and she totally ignored me and kept walking away from me. In another transit flight we taken off plane and were told to wait for train buggy to pick all the special assistance passengers. No one showed up and so we all ended up having to make our way to other end of airport to boarding gate as the plane was boarding. One official I asked on the way replied that he could not speak English. Eventually I approached an empty mover and he told us to hop on and took us to the gate just in time.

✅ Trip Verified | First time in the new big Istanbul airport so I was curious to see how it was. On the positive side everything looks nice and clean, and there are lots of shops. On the negative side, distances between gates may be really long and tiring. On the main body of the terminal there are no tapis roulant so you have to walk a lot. Beyond that, WiFi is only available after a complex registration process and limited to 1 hour! I could hardly believe this, since I've been into very small airports in Asia or Europe were Wi Fi is fully open and with no time limits. This looks like a jurassic service.

✅ Trip Verified | To return tax, I had to get to another desk and only one employee was serving to approximately 40 passengers. For Turkish airlines passengers there is no need to go to another desk, this is only for non-Turkish airlines passengers, which is a discrimination against passenger profile. I could not get my tax because I could not wait until my turn comes (I waited for more than an hour), otherwise I would have missed my flight. This is very bad customer service I had ever seen.

Not Verified | Worst customer service, very rude and charge you even if you don't have to pay the amount. The only airport that I have ever seen you have to pay for internet, ridiculous, and disappointing. I'll never ever use IST as the hub.

Not Verified | The staff was incredibly unfriendly and unhelpful. Laughed at me when I asked for directions. Refused to give me food vouchers even though I had a 10 hour layover with connecting flight. That was when I was lucky enough to find staff, though. They don't have info desks, only these big orange video boxes that are supposed to help you find stuff, but in reality I found maybe one working in the whole airport. Even with a 10h layover I was unable to visit the city because I couldn't find anyone to ask directions to find out how to get to the shuttles, and the orange boxes were useless, and by the time 5h of my layover time had gone by I gave up trying to go out. The food is so expensive you want to cry just looking at the price tags (6€ for a single macaron??). So, difficult to get out, impossible to buy food (or anything else); at least you can relax and watch a movie, right? No, because you only get 1 hour of free WiFi. After which it's 6€ for an additional 2 hours. If you're going to deprive me of food and a visit to the city, the least you can do is leave me an internet connection. The queue for Security Check is ridiculously long for such a big (and supposedly "the world's best") airport. Most of the aisles are closed, and the check itself if very slow and old-fashioned. Staff will yell at you for following the signs that very clearly indicate to go in one direction or other (i.e. "Security Check this way" but then for some reason you're wrong if you go the way that's indicated, and are actually meant to completely disregard the signs and go somewhere else). Once again, I've never seen such rude and unhelpful staff. They showed no empathy whatsoever for people who had been denied boarding, and made no move to help them solve the situation, which is what they should be there for. Most of them also don't have very good command of English, which is a bit of a problem when they work at help desks because they need to deal with passengers from all over the world. Not impressed at all with this airport.

Not Verified |   The airport is made large, maybe to beat Dubai, but it doesn't benefit passengers. There are about 13 exits from the airport but when you come from metro (10mins far without reason for new construction), there's NO sign of entrance and you spend 10 mins to test the closed entrances (entrance no.10 is only open!) exit to metro also not straight, you have to walk a lot. Meals are extremely expensive. I've seen only one free water fountain near toilet of a distant terminal, and couldn't find it again next trip. There's one hot water point for Chinese tourists, which I couldn't find. Shops are too expensive. Ways to terminals are not straight and long.