Istanbul Airport

Not Verified | If you have mobility issues, avoid Istanbul airport (IST) as plague I have travelled with my parents that both have mobility issues and the request for assistance was placed and approved long in advance. Upon arrival in Istanbul, we realised that there was only one person with a wheelchair, so my dad had to walk to the exit gate where we were left for a good hour before after my repeated discussions with the airport staff, the buggy has finally arrived. Important to know that if you have severe mobility issues to the point that you can not lift your leg, you would never be able to get on this buggy, it is way too high. After a lot of help on my side and with clearly visible pain signs on the face of my mother, we got on the buggy. They took us up to the waiting area at the entrance of the A gates. The area is located in a good walk from any toilet so how do they expect people to use them if they have mobility issues was not particular clear! At some point, we got a message that Turkish Airlines for the 3rd time changed our seats on the plane. Being worried that we will have little time to re-issue the boarding passes, I asked the woman to take us to the gate. The answer was no and she quickly returned to chit-chatting with her male colleague. I asked again with no reaction at all. This infuriated me and I asked for her name to write a complaint. After a short exchange in a broken English on her side, she informed me that now she is cancelling the assistance all together. I started arguing that she can not do it since my mom can not move on her own at all, she completely ignored me. I find it absolutely unacceptable to even suggest cancelling an assistance to someone who can not move on its own.

✅ Trip Verified | Spacious new looking airport. Insufficient seating capacity for transit passengers. Lots of shops mostly priced in EURO (above EU levels, so be careful) but charged in TRL w/o disclosing exchange rate. Good but overall too few food outlets (National/International). Found only one public water dispenser (however was told by information desk there are two). Too few restrooms, apparently about 25% of what would be required (thus crowded, long queues & dirty). Free WiFi can be had by registering at a few kiosks (queueing and several attempts necessary; needs to be improved). Avoid connecting to local Telco providers - roaming charges are a rip off.

Not Verified | Airport is big, clean, not enough Seats if a busy day. Too short time they advise for the gate, need to run because can be far from you. The worst Is the WiFi, free only 1hour which is ridiculously short nowadays. Food and beverage prices are too expensive change Turkish líra with your current Money, before buy. McDonald price ridiculous high. Also not lots of water fountains.

✅ Trip Verified | I can confidently say that my recent passage through Istanbul Airport was the most unpleasant experience at an Airport during those 50 years. I was stranded there by Turkish Airlines for 24 hours due to their inability to run to a Timetable, causing me to miss my onward flight to HCMC and eventually causing me to travel to my destination via Dubai instead of direct. The Airport is a nightmare to negotiate with endless walking, impossible Internet Access, almost no seating, ridiculous prices, and a "Help Desk" where one is treated to indifference, rudeness, and frankly lies (Paying for Business Class made zero difference). Despite the excessively long walks to Gates, the Departures are often only announced 30 minutes prior to Boarding. I would strongly advise against using this Hub if humanly possible.

✅ Trip Verified | Outrageous food/drink prices. Very modern but £32 for 4 coffees. £4 for a small can of coke. £10-13 for a sandwich. 4x the beach cost for small water bottle. Very busy, full of lux brand stores and no where near enough seats. Rest of Turkey experience was great - lovely people - but this - no way I’ll ever again voluntarily fund whatever operation runs this airport!

✅ Trip Verified |  Horrible, horrible airport, one-hour only free wifi. What modern airport does that?? And, you can't even connect to it normally, you have to queue at a kiosk to get a pass code by scanning your passport. I traveled through many airports, have never encountered this. Next, the staff were completely rude to me. The usb ports are faulty, no decent places to rest for long overlays, staff keep kicking you out of gate areas without giving you a reason. I haven't mentioned the prices, long walks, etc., since those could be expected, but the things mentioning are completely unacceptable in this day and age.

✅ Trip Verified | Had to transfer through this airport twice on July 22nd and Aug 4th, 2023. I had two small dessert silver plated forks in my carry on luggage on both dates. On July 22nd, security officer didn’t say anything about the forks in the carry on. On Aug 4th, when going through the security check to board a return flight, security demanded that I give her 2 forks. They took them forcefully and called “garbage”. This is very rude and totally unprofessional to call someone’s belongings “garbage”. These two beautiful forks are over 50 years old. They are a part of a family cutlery collection. That was a reason I didn’t put them in a luggage, as I was afraid to lose them in case luggage is lost. You can’t buy them anywhere. Calling something like this “garbage” is a complete disgrace, disrespect and ignorance. I was begging for giving me options how I could keep them as they are very meaningful to me. So many people were involved in this situation but nobody was trying to help or accommodate or provide a solution. They said forks cannot be taken on a plane for safety reasons. I suggested multiple options to resolve this including paying a fine, but they declined all the options I was giving them to save my forks. They were smiling and happy that they had a power to confiscate someone’s valuable items. I was referred to the Police officer woman, who didn’t care and didn’t bother to help. She was the one who called my silver plated forks “garbage”. When I was talking to her, she was on the video call with her relative. When I pointed that to her, only then she hang up. This is such an unprofessional behavior. Obviously, she didn’t do anything to help to resolve this. This situation made security guards very happy. They felt they are on top of the world for humiliating a passenger. When we were leaving, they were laughing at our backs and wishing us a good flight. Safety concern is a very weak argument, given that forks are allowed in carry on in many countries, including my home country. I also confirmed this with security officers, when came back home. Both dates I flew through 3 different countries and no one made this a problem. Do not tell me that this is an airport rule. All rules are created by people and can be negotiated, accommodated and solutions can be found on common grounds, if willing. There is no even a common international aviation standard on this item. I said to the security, that I am flying with an airline that allow cutlery, including forks, in carry on. On a plane, my meal was served with metal knife and dining size fork! Confiscating my two small dessert forks and claiming it a safety concern was a total shame, they were not even a dining size forks! I have never been to this airport before. Never again, I return to this degrading IST airport and country.

✅ Trip Verified | This place has such poorly designed facilities where it is known as one of the largest airports in the world. This has got to be one of the worst airports I've ever used and transit at. Despite my flight with Turkish Airlines awful, I had to walk from one side to the other side of the terminal which took like 30 minutes to get to the other side. I think this airport should add more carpets that way it is quieter and it shows no loud sounds of luggage. The transit was not easy where the signs were confusing and too complicated. The cleanliness at the airport needed to improve, in the future I would avoid this terrible airport.

Not Verified | Arrived on TK Flight some 4 hours late. No Ground Staff anywhere to assist the Passengers, many of whom had missed connecting Flights, including myself. Walked for miles to find the TK Counter, which was staffed by two persons, one of whom disappeared when Passengers arrived. Treated with disinterest, rudeness and dismissal. Ended up with a flight with an alternative Airline and landed in my destination some 33 hours late. The airport is a total disaster with pedestrian distances making orderly Transit impossible, staff are disinterested, rude and unpleasant, and delays are frequent due to the inability of the Airport to handle the Traffic. The emphasis appears to be on the Retail activities which are grossly overpriced and bereft of Customers.

Not Verified | The airport is modern, new and huge. But there is no proper management in terms of coordination. My flight from Milan was late and arrived in Istanbul 1 hour late as well. There was no coordination from ground crew for transit passengers and once you reached the gate, the ground staff are not trained about good customer service, non empathetic to customers and rude. They are fighting in front of delayed customers who missed its flight because of their unorganized and delayed flight. And it seems no body cares about their poor customers. You will see a lot of customers running and missing their connecting flights because of lack of system coordination. And once you missed your flight, ground staff in the gate will only inform the customers to look again for their customer service office because they are not interested at all. Never again! Train your staff about ground crew customer service.