Need Advice on Flight: Turkish Air

I'd probably wait, but TA is a fine airline. The savings would have to be quite large for me to accept the longer flight time though.

65 minutes to transfer between flights is pushing it at IST airport. Have you checked Skyscanner yet for alternatives?

I'd probably wait, but TA is a fine airline. The savings would have to be quite large for me to accept the longer flight time though.

It's actually one of the shortest flight times available.

65 minutes to transfer between flights is pushing it at IST airport. Have you checked Skyscanner yet for alternatives?

I've never heard of it. Off to check...

65 minutes to transfer between flights is pushing it at IST airport. Have you checked Skyscanner yet for alternatives?

Skyscanner shows the same results as Travelocity.

On Google flights, I picked a random two-week period in October and multi-city flights were less $900--and half the length. I see results on BA, Delta, Lufthansa, and Air France.
Try your specific dates there--you are doing multi-city search, right?
On the Turkish flight, if the airline is offering that, they expect it to be realistic.

I have flown Turkish Airlines a couple of times, and would be happy to fly it again if route/price was right.

The Hopper App has a useful price prediction tool which may help you decide when to buy.

On Google flights, I picked a random two-week period in October and multi-city flights were less $900--and half the length. I see results on BA, Delta, Lufthansa, and Air France.
Try your specific dates there--you are doing multi-city search, right?
On the Turkish flight, if the airline is offering that, they expect it to be realistic.

Thanks. I have been tracking them on Google flights, Travelocity, and individual airlines websites. Our dates are 9/20-10/4, and yes, I'm doing multi-city search. Turkish Air is just under $900, everyone else is over $900.

How are you seeing half the length? TA is 15 1/2 hours, everything else is 13 1/2- up to 28 hours.

I was looking at the TA flights with longer layovers. I did find TA a nice airline but it’s been years.
So, I would try to suss out the layover time issue more. Maybe there are some “on time stats” out there —and confirm that is a “legal connection time”? But would spend 200 more if I was going to have to worry about missing the flight for sure. Good luck!

In October 2024, I flew Turkish to Istanbul and later flew in country before coming back to Chicago two weeks later: They were excellent.

I fly on Turkish Airlines often - in fact, as often as I can...I (literally) go out of my way to fly them. They provide a very nice business class experience (if you can swing it, you'll love it), it's the best way for me to get between Seattle and many parts of Europe. I look forward to flying on them whenever I can (by the way, it's "TK" not "TA").

That said, IST is a huge, vast airport, with lots of walking between places. 1 H 5 m for a connection is a little tight. But assuming you are all on one ticket, if you mis-connect TK will put you on the next available flight - check their schedule to see when that would be (could be just an hour later, could be next day). If the risk is just a few more hours in the airport, I'd actually call that a win - if you can get access to their lounge, it's a great place to relax for a few hours (my spouse now gives me a hard time if we have a connection there with less than 3-4 hours because she wants a massage and I like their lentil soup...so time in the lounge is a good thing for us).

TK is a great airline. You will like it.

Definitely check on-time performance, when I went to Turkey in 2023 the Seattle-IST flight was notoriously late in both directions. I would not risk a 65 minute connection there unless you're sure there are other Venice bound flights available if you missed yours. My flight landed on time but taxied for nearly 30 minutes to the gate and though Istanbul was my final destination, the airport is HUGE and I walked another 15 minutes to immigration. YMMV.

No way to predict if airfares will come down. I bought my multi city tickets (London/Paris) for a trip in August in February for $1100. I kept tracking prices for what I bought on Google Flights and they came down for one day last week and I was able to request a $200 airline credit. The price went up the next day. So my advice is if you find flights suitable at a price you like, book it and don't look back (unless you want to track for possible airline credit).

Take a look at the length of the flights. Istanbul is a 2.5-3 hour flight from northern Italy, so you are going several hours out of your way. Is the difference in price worth the added length of the itinerary?

We just booked flights for just over $500 from sea leaving in early September. We fly into zurich and out of Rome. check Icelandic. They have had some really good fares. For 4 of us it was just about $2500. Train to Mailan from Zurich is very inexpensive. Just an idea but it was considerably cheaper for us to do this.

We also considered the Turkishair flights and had been on the fence. Icelandic had SEA- Zurich/Geneva-SEA for $2000 (four travelers). After playing around on their site I found the Zurich to Rome.

I have seen several deals on "Going' (formerly Scott's cheap Flights) for early October flights to Europe.

We just booked flights for just over $500 from sea leaving in early September. We fly into zurich and out of Rome. check Icelandic. They have had some really good fares. For 4 of us it was just about $2500. Train to Mailan from Zurich is very inexpensive. Just an idea but it was considerably cheaper for us to do this.

That's a huge difference from what I am seeing! There are 5 of us, so it has been very discouraging seeing prices in the $925-$1200 range per person. Guess I'll start trying to create a jigsaw puzzle of a flight pattern.

We've abandoned the Turkish Air idea, I'm just not comfortable with the short connection time. At the moment our best bet is British Airways, but there is a 5 1/2 hour wait in London. I like the Delta flight that stops at JFK for 3 hours, but the lowest fare has every restriction known to man.

momofboys, I am not seeing anything around $500 on Icelandair. The fares I am seeing are equivalent to all my searches for SEA>VCE, MXP>SEA. :(