Istanbul Airport

Waiting time at immigration and passport control is horrible. I am travelling 2-3 times per month and almost every time I had to wait more than 45 mins. Airport signage (Information screens check-in and baggage) is difficult and less helpful. My flight number is very often not visible it shows randomly all codeshare flight numbers and this makes everything difficult. Restrooms smell restaurants are very expensive. Language Skills of Airport staff are very bad.

Far too many flights and people jammed into the International terminal. Flight departed for Tel Aviv at 9.30pm. Departed gate on time but ended up 15th in line for take-off leading to a 30 minute delay. I arrived earlier in the day at approximately 1pm from Toronto. Passport control and visa services were fast and courteous. Duty Free prices were expensive. Food court overcrowded with uncomfortable seating (plastic flimsy chairs).

It claims to be a hub. It could be if would work in a proper manner. Passport control very slow seating availability very poor. Custom office for getting the stamp for VAT claim back is situated in an awful corner. Quick growth in terms of passengers number has not been followed by an adequate customer service implementation. Turkish style!

Annoyingly loud hasty announcements. Rude staff at security checkpoints who could utter a few words in broken English. Security screening when entering the terminal building as well as having to go through it again at the gates. Obscenely high prices for a cup of tea or a burger. Lack or absence of signs and directions to guide passengers. Inadequate air conditioning. Luggage trolleys chained together and borrowing one requires a coin which you know you won't get back practically because you cannot ask your taxi driver to hold on. Extremely long passport lines for foreigners.

Dirty. Uncomfortable. Dreadful. Unfortunately had to stay there for several hours while waiting for flight. Consistently rude and disagreeable airport employees from screeners onward.

Airport was an intermediate stop. Overwhelmed disorganized not able to handle the large influx of passengers. Misleading signs inadequate signs. Long lines and very disorganized without knowledgeable personnel. People seemed incompetent to provide advice and directions. Did not speak English enough. Different people would provide different responses. Something was always missing to be provided by the next airport agent asked. Not particularly caring about the situation of the passengers being lost stranded having their flight delayed etc. Hopefully I will never pass through such an airport again.

We recently traveled from Istanbul to New York. Spent 4 hours at Istanbul Ataturk Airport before we boarded the plane. This is a relatively small airport compared to other international airports around the world not much too see or do but meets the basic needs with several restaurants and cafes. There is a food court at one end with fast food stands very unattractive seating and lighting. When we came to our gate we wanted to use the bathrooms. The ladies restroom smelled of dense cigarette smoke. The stalls were dirty. There was no soap in the soap dispensers and no paper towel to use. It's obvious that the airport management does not care about the cleanliness of the bathrooms otherwise they would have installed smoke alarms in the bathrooms and employed more people to keep the bathrooms clean.

Dreadful experience. This airport is far too small to handle all the flights arriving and departing there. Early morning arrival from Sochi not all airbridges in use but still a remote stand and bus transfer to the terminal. Poor signage long queues and surly staff. Very long queues at security screening (waiting time 40 mins) and this airport is promoting itself as the ideal transfer airport? The whole airport is very overcrowded. Connecting flight to Brussels also from a remote stand. Not a single boarding call was made. The airport just cannot cope with the expansion of Turkish Airlines. Avoid.

Awful experience. Firstly no air bridge and needed bus transfer. Not enough buses meant 40 passengers left standing on Tarmac for 10 minutes. Into terminal to join horrendous queue for visa extremely hot one employee and over an hour then have to join another queue for passport control another half hour. By the time we got to baggage carousel it had stopped with cases left standing. All in all nearly two hours.

Used 3 times recently: International arrival Domestic departure Domestic - International transfer. The experience was far better than previous reviews led me to expect. The international arrival was calm and orderly - it was mid-evening so perhaps a quiet time. The domestic departure - early afternoon - ditto. The need to undergo two security checks - one for the building one for airside is a bit tedious but worked OK. The domestic - international transfer was more pressured - you get taken landside after domestic arrival (why?) and then mixed in with local departing international passengers but passport / security etc worked smoothly enough with structured queues etc. Facilities airside immediately downstream of security were crowded but once you made your way to gate all fairly spacious and calm.