What discount airlines fly out of Istanbul?

Atlas and Pegasus. But I didn't use them. I used TAL, because I was too paranoid to trust the Atlas and Pegasus websites.

We flew Pegasus and like all other cheap airlines they were ruthless in enforcing any extra money that had to paid.

That's why I didn't want to deal with them, BigAleinstein. Having flown EasyJet in Italy and England (no problems, but I know how these discount airlines can be), I didn't feel like dealing with any potential dogdoo in a culture with which I'm less familiar...

Pegaus was fine, money is the universal translator. I particularly like Vueling in Spain. Turkish Air is excellent, it all depends on how much you wish to spend and your tolerance for the tactics of all these cheap airlines.

I agree, BA. The thing is, though, when I compared the prices of TA v. Pegasus and Atlas, there wasn't enough of a difference to make me want to deal with any hassle! (But I did all my booking last-minute, just last month. And interestingly, I didn't find there was much difference in prices between booking one month prior to flight and actual day of flight.)

I booked SunExpress because it was the only direct flight for our date. Fingers crossed.

We flew Atlasjet to Izmir and had no problems. Wonderful flight, nice leather seats, a beverage and hot sandwich, plus pleasant FAs. All in an hour flight and a free shutllebus service.

Ryan Air and Air Berlin both fly to Istanbul, so I assume they also fly out of there

Air Berlin is by far the nicer of the two--as in not ruthlessly charging for every possible thing.

Lufthansa has reasonable rates as well.

Where are you flying to?