Transfer between international and domestic flights at IST
 

What would be a realistic time to allow for transfer from a midday arrival on Lufthansa from NY to IST connecting to a domestic flight on Atlasjet. We have visa and carryon luggage.

IMO you need to give yourself about 3 hours, immigration and security lines can be very long, though sometimes it goes much faster. We did it the other way round last Oct, domestic to international at IST and it took us a good 1.5 hours just to get from our landing gate to the departure one, even though our bags had been checked through from Antayla.

I agree with geetika as a risk manager. However, it also depends upon your time of arrival to IST and the frequency of other arivals at the time.

Just as a rough guide, consider :

- 15 minutes from from landing to passport control
- 20 minutes passport control
- 15 minutes walk to domestic (on your left as you come out of int'l customs)
- 10 minutes security check
- need to be at check-in at least 60-90 minutes before take-off
- 30 minutes check-in
- 10 minutes second security check
- 10 minutes to gate

Piggybacking on this, what time to arrive at the airport for a 6:15 am departure on a Wednesday? Flying to the US

You probably should arrive about two and a half hours before departure.

At that hour transfer to IST airport from Taksim will be 25-30 minutes and from Sultanahmet, less than that.

Thanks!