IST airport question
 

We already booked a roundtrip ticket to/from IST. We are now trying to figure out logistics of our trip within Turkey. Looks like on our last day we may fly from Izmir to IST then from IST to NYC on our original ticket.

My question is - how much ahead of our international flight to NY should we plan to arrive from our flight form Izmir? Ie. once you are passed security, will we need to leave and go out and change terminals and check in somewhere else? What if we are on the same airline? HOw much time would this take to switch from domestic arrival to international departure? Would we be able to check in at Izmir for our flight to NYC as well? are flights in general pretty reliable from Izmir? (this is all for IST / Ataturk airport )

I honestly did not think there were any problems getting into/out of the airport. Unfortunately, their terminal map is not in English.
http://www.ataturkairport.com/tr-TR/...ishepsicon.pdf

google for a terminal map. you'll find several in English.


On original arrival, you will need to buy a visa.

Leaving, you might want to spend some time in the duty free shops. My wife is really into expensive cosmetics and I found La Prairie as more than reasonable prices.

This first part of my response is not an informed one but just a suggestion :

If you have about two and a half to four hours between arrival from izmir and departure to NYC, go to the international terminal in izmir and try to check in for both flights there.

Your check-in procedures should be faster in Izmir and they will check your baggage all the way to JFK, if they accept it.
You will also go through passport control in Izmir and will be taken from the plane upon arrival directly to the international departures area, where, if you have too much time and are not traveling business, can pay to spend your time at Prime Class Lounge with free drinks and finger food.

If they say you have to check-in at the domestic terminal, ask at the counter if they will check your baggage all the way to JFK. Most probably they will do that, thus saving you from lugging it around at Istanbul.

Once at Istanbul arrivals, all you do is take a right inside the terminal and go on the walk way to the international terminal and then go up the stairs to the departures area. Unfortunately, carts are not allowed up the stairs. This process will not take longer than ten minutes.

Unless thre is anything unusual, there should not be any delays longer than 30 minutes from Izmir to Istanbul. However, I would leave at least two and a half hours between arrival and departure in istanbul, considering possible bottle-necks at security also.

do not forget that the 3oz rule applies also for domestic flights in Turkey.

Thanks. The flight we are looking at arrives from Izmir into IST at 4pm. OUr flight from IST to NYC is 6:35pm...we are hoping to do only carryon luggage (yup, wishful thinking right now, but after dragging around luggage around Italy last year, i vowed never to do that again). So, based on this, I think we should be ok timewise...as long as there are not massive delays at Izmir. Agreed?

I've done the Izmir Istanbul Amsterdam route on Turkish and KLM. I think we had 3 hours. We were in Business class, so had fast check in @ IST, got priority cards for security, etc. (There seemed to be a lot of security checks)

We had loads of time for shopping etc but remember we had an expedited process