Istanbul airport

A quick search yielded: Istanbul airport is ATATURK and IST is the code.

Thank you for your prompt response, much appreciated.

I know you didn't ask this, but do try to fly Turkish Air from JFK to IST. Not only is it often cheaper than United (from EWR) or Delta (from JFK), which are the other nonstops, but it's MUCH nicer than either of these. The food is actually tasty, the planes are new (USB charging ports at every seat, Audio-Video on Demand at each seat, and sometimes electrical outlets too) and the flight attendants are pleasant. I only wish they went to other places from New York besides Turkey <g>. To compare flights, use http://www.kayak.com. Put in NYC as your departure city - this will pull up flights from all three New York City airports. And since I see you asked about Rome's airport as well: you don't actually need to know airport codes to use Kayak. Just type in the name of the city, and it will pull it up (if there's only one), or will give options (if there's more than one). You can always "cityname-all airports" and go from there. Often, as in the case of Istanbul and Rome, there's more than one airport, but only one gets flights from the US. If you actually have a choice of airports once you see the options on Kayak, ask here to see if it makes a difference (most of the time any airport to a city will work, but there are exceptions).

Thank you for the web site, found it most helpful and your advice.

Turkish Airlines would be my first choice too. I truly enjoyed their long-haul flight from Istanbul to Toronto and would fly with them again in a flash!

Here's another vote for Turkish Air. I flew with them from and to London before my RS tour last year.
I hope you have a great time in Istanbul. It's now my favourite city in the world.

One more vote for Turkish Air. We flew from Istanbul to Izmir in coach and had clean comfy seats and a tasty meal. This was a 1.5 hour flight and we only wished that we had booked Turkish Air for our flights from England to Istanbul.

Turkish Airlines has recently refurbished their aircraft and they are really nice. The food / wines are great too. The airport is called Kemal Ataturk International Airport.

There are two Istanbul airports by the way. IST is the closer one, but there's one on the Asian side and if you are looking to keep prices down that may help. It's called Sabiha Gökçen with the code SAW. Like someone said, you could use Skyscanner to check NYC to Istanbul and have it check the different combinations for you. There's a bus at the airport that is fairly inexpensive for a trip into the city.