Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles - Domestic to International at IST

I am flying from Izmir to Istanbul on Turkish Airways and connecting to a British Airways flight to Heathrow. There is 1 hour and 25 minutes between the arrival and departure. Is this going to work?

I am flying from Izmir to Istanbul on Turkish Airways and connecting to a British Airways flight to Heathrow. There is 1 hour and 25 minutes between the arrival and departure. Is this going to work?

I have a similar question, although mine is connecting International to International. I am flying from ORD and leaving for SVO all on TK in C, have 1:25 between the flight also. Is that enough time to hit the lounge? Do SVO flights depart from a bus gate? Thanls.

I am flying from Izmir to Istanbul on Turkish Airways and connecting to a British Airways flight to Heathrow. There is 1 hour and 25 minutes between the arrival and departure. Is this going to work?

We did something similar in June - Antalya to Istanbul on Atlas Air, then we had to claim our bags (15-20 min), walk to the international terminal (5-10 min), check in at the ticket counter for a KLM flight to Amsterdam, go through passport control (the long line moved fairly quickly), and go to our gate. Security checks for international flights are actually conducted at the gate, so that was a big time saver.

If you and your luggage are checked through to LHR, it will be a breeze. Passport and security lines should not take that long.

Worst case, if you have to claim bags from TA and then check in on BA, it will be close - be sure and check with BA to see the cutoff time for checking in at IST.

Good Luck.

I would advise against such short connection times now, as there are a lot of delays into Istanbul these days. Turkish Airlines was 30 minutes late from Izmir to Istanbul on Friday, and yesterday Swiss from Zurich was put in a holding pattern for 45 minutes before landing, just to mention the two flights I have first hand knowledge of from this weekend.

I had come to the same conclusion and booked an earlier flight. Better a few hours at the airport than missing the last flight of the day.

1,5 hrs at IST airport is enough for dom-> intl and intl -> int

i did it several times and there was no problem

if there is a problem they ll rebook you for the next flight

of course you have to fly on the same ticket -

in turkey being nice at check in really pays off. i flew last week from dalaman to ist on one ticket and on another one to an intl destinationn- the guy checked in my bagagge all the way to my final destination :)

as you know you ll be normally refused such a trick elswehere (not always though)

I had a couple of questions.

1. We have 3 hours (hopefully) between a domestic and international leg. Flying TK Business class from Antalya to Istanbul arrive at 13:15 then depart on BA (club Europe) for LHR at 16:35. On different tickets. Given we have a reasonable amount of time is it better to collect our luggage and recheck in, rather than try and get it checked through? (Better as in more likely to make the right flight?) We fly from LHR to SYD the next day on EY, so I don't want to have luggage going missing if possible.

2. I have been checking the airport terminal map at Istanbul and there doesn't seem to be a TK CIP lounge at the domestic terminal. Is it the domestic terminal I need to go to to check in a flight to Antalya (business class) ? I have seen that domestic business class passengers can check in at the CIP lounge, but just having a bit of trouble working out where it is.

Any advice gratefully accepted. :)

I did almost exactly what you are doing last week.

1. I did not have a choice about checking luggage since Turkish Airlines refused to check my bags through to LHR via BA. Yes, I was also flying Business Class on TK from Izmir. However, upon checking the rules they should have interlined the baggage.

TK-235 TURKISH AIRLINES/TURKISH AIRLINES INC

MAY ISSUE TICKETS INCLUDING
BA-125 BRITISH AIRWAYS/BRITISH AIRWAYS PLC

MAY CHECK BAGGAGE TO
BA

Having said that, I had no issues picking up the bags, putting them on a trolley, and taking them to the BA check-in counter but...

The BA check-in counter does not open until two (2) hours before the scheduled flight. You may end up hanging out for over an hour waiting to check your bags. There is a Gloria Coffee with nice chairs next to their counter.

2. The TK domestic lounge is located between the international and domestic terminals. It is about a 10 minute walk from the domestic terminal to the lounge. Yes, you can check-in at the lounge. When your flight is ready they take you on a bus to your aircraft. You do not need to walk to the domestic gate from the lounge.

And... I also flew the next day to Sydney in F on the QF A380. You can see my post about the terrible conditions on arrival at the Sydney Airport. I had a great month exploring Turkey.

Thanks for that info - yes I had forgotten about BA not opening until 2 hours before. We got caught once, travelling back from the Crimea to LHR via IST. We arrived to find our luggage was the other side of immigration and we had no visas. We were standing there debating whether to buy a visa and collect our luggage and re check in, when a guy came up to us and offerend to take our passports, luggage checks and tickets and do it all for us.... We rather crazily did it (OK we had had not much sleep the night before). Anyway we had a rather edgy time, as we had arrived in the morning and of course BA didn't open until 2 hours before a late afternoon flight, so we had 6 hours of wondering if we were totally crazy and whether we would even see our 5 passports again (not to mention all the rest). However he finally came good and returned everything and got a huge tip, as well as restoring my faith in humanity.

Sydney is a zoo - especially when all the morning flights arrive. We have the new passports, that should allow us to use the automatic booths, but I don't have a lot of confidence. :)

Thanks for all the info, particularly about the location of the lounge. We will have about 3 weeks in Turkey although pretty much Istanbul and Antalya - we will have to go back again for a more extensive visit.

The Sydney disaster was an 8:45 PM arrival. Immigration not the issue. Customs. Priority Lane not in operation - free for all - anyone and everyone in the line. I cleared immigration in less than a minute. It was an hour to escape through customs. Good luck. If you have time go visit the site of Termessos. About 40 minutes north of Antalya in the mountains. A 20-30 minute hike to the first set of interesting ruins. Great environment. I much preferred over Perge and Aspendos.

Yes customs is even more of a disaster - it used to be that you could say you had some food to declare, go to that queue, show them an innocuous box of chocs and be through in 2 minutes. Now they seem to x-ray everything and take bags to pieces - I've seen quite a lot of food being attempted to smuggle through though, so it is probably necessary.

Thanks for the tip about Termessos - we should have quite a bit of free time in Antalya as daughter is playing chess there - we are just the baggage handlers.