New Istanbul Airport

[StevieBee]

Had cause to transit through the new Istanbul Airport yesterday. Very impressive facility! But a couple of pointers for the regular travellers or those heading there soon.

It's open, but I wouldn't say it was finished. Not that many places to get a drink or food once you head out to the gates. The food stalls are there and manned but selling nothing other than rolls and bottles of pop. And some of the flight notification signs are a little on the optimistic side ('go to gate', yet it's three hours until your flight!).

None of the lounges yet accept Priority Pass. If you're not travelling Business, there is a pay-lounge at €50 per person. I had a quick look and thought 'nah', nice but not worth €50!!

On the good side, they have teams of 'Ask Me' people who - unusually for Turkey - all seemed to know the answers to questions being asked.

Turkish Airlines remain one of my favourite airlines to fly with.

Overall, teething niggles aside, does seem a good airport, well run and a nice place to be for a few hours. The only downside is that they appear to have located the runways on a different continent to the terminal. Did take quite a while to trundle to our gate.

[Swampy1982]

Really appreciate this feedback, I am due there in the next few months, thanks for taking the time to let us know.

[MarkJS]

I use to fly to/through Ataturk almost weekly and it was very well run most of the time - I don't doubt the new one will be great once fully operational and up to speed.

I also agree with your opinion of Turkish Airlines - generally brilliant.

[shirt]

StevieBee said:

Turkish Airlines remain one of my favourite airlines to fly with.

i would be interested to know why. i find them to be distinctly average to below average. IFE never seems to work, seat pitch is cramped, although the food is reasonable.

i found the lounge reasonable value last week as had a 6hr layover on the first day of operations. a few games of pool with a colleague, a few plates of meatballs and we lost count of the efes.

not one of the 'ask me' people knew much about anything and yeah a lot of annoyed business travelers with no lounge access or getting the wrong lounge and the staff didn't know where to direct them. i guess that will soon be sorted though.

one thing to note - there is no pharmacy airside. whether one is planned i don't know but i found this odd and literally painful as all my meds were in checked luggage.

and yeah, i thought we were driving to ataturk on the shuttle bus!

[StevieBee]

shirt said:

StevieBee said:

Turkish Airlines remain one of my favourite airlines to fly with.

i would be interested to know why. i find them to be distinctly average to below average.

All comes down to personal experience. A good marker for me is the care and attention airlines pay to to sub-optimal routes, not just the portfolio routes. I travel to north Cyprus a lot and prefer going to Ercan rather than Larnaca. Only a few airlines fly into Ercan and all have to go via Turkey. If you fly Atlas and Pegasus (neither of which are too bad either), your plane to and from Ercan is usually one that has seen better days, as have the crew and everything else tends to be a bit tatty round the edges. The plane I flew from there on yesterday with TA was a brand-spanker Airbus with entertainment and attentive crews to levels you'd get if you were heading to New York. All on a 1 hour flight. And for the same money as the others. Have experienced similar with them on other similar routes.

And they bumped me to Business Class on the flight to Istanbul last week for no apparent reason!

[shirt]

hmm, that's just the difference between low cost and national carrier imho.

i flew out of dubai and i would say all aspects of the airline are a step down from the other flag carriers operating european or asian routes. the onward leg [west africa] was 6+ hrs in a 737, dictionary definition of sub-optimal!

to be fair, the only other alternative for this destination is ethiopian via addis. i would say the experience is comparable to turkish but i don't cope well with long layovers at regional african airports so [back on topic] istanbul it was. have got 8hrs on the way back and will be through another 6-8 times before this project is finished so i should at least get to see how things bed in. something other than efes on tap would be nice for starters.

[StevieBee]

shirt said:

something other than efes on tap would be nice for starters.

Amen to that! OK in a bar on Kyrenia harbour. Elsewhere.....nope!

[dc2rr07]

YouTube clip of a drag race they had at one of the grand opening events...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NCoqgEeFeTo
That Tesla is certainly quick of the line

[Yetski]

I'm flying through there on Wednesday night, quite looking forward to seeing it although we will be expecting a few niggles, and why not with a facility this size just opening, but hopefully it will be a lot less congested than Ataturk which was getting ridiculous.
As for the standard of Turkish Airlines, they can be very hit and miss, one time you get a brand new plane, the next it's something out of the arc, service standards also vary greatly, on the plus side business class is very cheap compared to other carriers, but they are certainly know where near any of the Asian airlines IMHO.