ISTFlyer

Door 6 & 7 are used for international non-Star Alliance companies.

deltatrav

Any one have news on the SkyTeam lounge? Was supposed to open in Q3. I assume nothing on Priority Pass at this point, either... ?

hfly

As of a couple of weeks ago there is actually a big tarp that says "Skyteam" where the lounge is supposed to be, but does not look even close to being done.........or maybe they will rename it the Saudia lounge as currently Saudia runs as many flights into IST as the rest of Skyteam combined!

lavedder

IST's TK business lounge is great and the food is amazing. Make sure you allow plenty of time to go to your gate for US bound flights as there are 2 more security checks at the gate which are real bottle necks.

Astrophsx

I haven't done a deep dive into this thread, but we had a 9 hour layover and wanted to head to the city to see the Blue Mosque. It was super easy. After clearing immigration and customs you go down one level for the Havaist shuttles. All the info I read made me believe we had to obtain a IstanbulKart with cash. So I headed over to the ATM which was on the way and purchased and loaded a IstanbulKart. The thing is that you do not need one. The driver of the Havaist shuttle accepted credit card as payment. I wish we would have known this! We departed at 6:30am and arrived 40 minutes later at Sultanahmet Square and just footsteps from the Blue Mosque. We roamed around the square and grabbed breakfast and caught the 10am bus and were back in about 45 minutes. This was a week day. Not sure when the traffic gets bad, but it was very light when we were there. Once we arrived back at the airport there was a dedicated customs and security line for Turkish business class passengers. Headed over to the lounge and grabbed a suite to take a shower.

I will say that there was an extreme amount of walking from when we arrived to the gate to customs/immigration. It must have been at least 15+ minutes of walking. We stored our carry on bag for 36 TL near the exit before we headed down one level to catch the shuttle.

ISTFlyer

Thanks for sharing your experience,

You could also top-up an Istanbulkart with credit cards on the blue top-up machines, the yellow ones only accept cash but the blue ones accept credit cards as well.
In addition, the Havaist buses accept credit cards, however, for the İETT lines to the airport, you would need a single ticket or an Istanbulkart.

Astrophsx

I will be honest that we found the machines a bit confusing. Part of it was due to being in a rush to catch the next shuttle. I was under the impression that the machines didn't give change, but they did. The only time we needed cash was to pay for the luggage storage. Almost every place we went accepted Visa.

ISTFlyer

Yes, the newer ones ( blue machines ) give change. However, the older version ( yellow ones ) does not give change at all.

nwflyboy

I'm wondering how long to allow for a leisurely, low-stress connection in IST...

We will arrive in IST on a weekday in March. Coming in to IST from Paris CDG on Air France. Scheduled arrival in IST is at OMG 4 am.
We will be coming all the way from Seattle (SEA-CDG in J), with an 11 hour-layover in Paris. During that long layover in Paris, we do plan to head into the city for a few hours (stretch our legs, speak French, eat something) before returning to CDG and then heading onward CDG-IST (departing CDG 11 pm). So two consecutive redeye flights back to back, and arriving IST before dawn. It'll be a long day (although I do expect to be able to get some solid sleep on the long nonstop SEA-CDG TATL flight up in a nice lay-flat J seat).

After arrival formalities at IST (and maybe a shower, if I can find one in a lounge) we plan to connect to a domestic flight to Izmir.

Flight to Izmir will be on a separate ticket, have not purchased that yet (so, separate tickets = no "protection" if we miss the flight -- that said, there are many flights from IST to ADB, nearly every hour, so worst case if we misconnect we could suck it up and buy a ticket for IST-ADB later in the day).

There are flights from IST to ADB nearly every hour of the day (06:00, 07:00, 08:00, 09:00, 10:00, 11:25, 13:15 etc.). So we can pick pretty much any hour for the onward flight. We do want to press on to Izmir upon arrival (we will be spending our Istanbul days at the end of the trip).

Our first visit to Turkey. Big airport. Traveling on US passports, we will have cleared passport control in France, but this will still be international (non-Schengen). We will have Turkish E-Visa in-hand before arrival (assuming they haven't suspended that due to diplomatic squabbles, which is actually a real possibility). We will be anxious to begin relaxing upon arrival in Izmir, but won't have anything time-critical scheduled for our arrival day (not catching a departing cruise ship or anything else). I expect we will be quite jetlagged beyond Paris and will limit our plans accordingly.

So...how long to allow for a relaxed, no-stress arrival in IST and onward connection? What time should we book that IST-ADB flight?

I'm guessing 8, 9 or 10 am should be plenty of buffer...no?

Thanks.

Braswch

Will you have access to the Turkish Airlines lounge. If so I would lean on staying longer. But I would think of it this way. Arrive 4, allow for 1 hour delay, so arrive 5. 1 hour to get to where you will shower, 6. 1 hour to shower and relax, 7, 1 hour to eat, so 8, 1 hour to get to and board plan, so 9. So yea 9 or 10 flight.

hfly

Why exactly is that a "real possibility". If you are referring to the Turkey-US squabbles 2 years ago, no one with an E-visa or any other type of visa was denied entry into the country. Getting a visa for a 3 month period was close to impossible, as Turkish missions abroad stopped issuing visas to US passport holders for a time...............because the US had also stopped issuing visas to Turks in Turkey..............because the Turks had arrested 2 Turkish citizens working for the US government.............because the Turks said that these people were affiliated with the group that staged the attempted coup in Turkey..................which the US denied..........etc, etc. But again no one who had a valid visa in hand had any issues.

rankourabu

Further to this, does TK transfer bags on a 12 hour overnight layover. (Does not qualify for TK hotel, there is a flight with 8 hour layover)

gr8pirate

As far as I know, TK are happy to ‘keep’ and transit bags at IST on connections under 24 hours.

SFOTraveler1984

Correct!

Worcester

If I have a international flight arriving at midnight and a domestic connection (unprotected) leaving at 2am. Is that doable (risky I know) or completely impossible?