I'm flying from Seoul (ICN) to Malta (MLA) next month. I arrive at 0620 into IST, but I'm booked on the evening flight to Malta (12 hour layover) due to no business class on the morning flight at 0755. I'm not bothered about flying business on the short hop from IST - Malta, I'd rather get there earlier, so called the customer line to ask if they could downgrade that last segment and move me to the earlier flight - the answer was no, they could only change the whole flight from Seoul.
I've booked an economy flight from IST - MLA on the morning flight, so I now have 2 bookings. My question is, will I be able to check in online and go straight to the gate for the morning flight (avoiding entering Turkey)? I'm happy to lose the evening flight. I'm travelling hand luggage only so no hold luggage.
I'd prefer to advise Turkish (to avoid delay to the evening flight) but the customer helpline don't seem to be able to help.
Just to let you know that this would create some complications as you might not be able to get a boarding pass through online check-in for the IST-MLA flight as COVID related requirements, such as vaccination certificates, COVID tests, passenger locator forms, etc... needs to be checked by an airport agent so you would either need to get your boarding pass for your morning IST-MLA flight at Seoul or at the transfer desk before 06:40 Turkey local time ( 75 minutes before departure ) as you are technically originating from Istanbul on that ticket.
The customer service on the phone would not be able to do anything other than trying to change the ICN-IST-MLA ticket at once which is not possible due to the lack of Business Class availability on the earlier IST-MLA flight.