Turkish Airlines Checked Bags on Tight Connections

Once my Turkish Airlines flight from Atlanta was delayed, and I missed my connection to Venice. Turkish put me up in a hotel overnight, and my checked bag and I both made it to Venice the next day.

The other incident was in March 2020, during the great Covid shutdown. Our original plan had been to spend a few nights in Istanbul on the way back from Egypt. Unfortunately, they shut down the Turkish border a few hours before we arrived. Our luggage was allowed into Turkey, but we weren't. Miraculously, our luggage arrived with us in New York the next day.

I also missed a connection to Antalya last year. I caught the next plane, and my luggage arrived in Antalya with me.

2 hours is a really tight connection in Istanbul, even if the plane is on time. It's a huge airport that required a lot of walking. I am betting that your luggage will have a better chance of making the connection than you will.

This sounds like a good time to do carry on.

No personal experience, but it appears the delayed departure from SEA is due to the plane being late into SEA from IST.

Looks like the scheduled layover for you in IST is 2h20 minutes. No idea if the extra 20 minutes makes a difference, but every bit has to help.

Suspect your making the flight is more of an issue than 'will the bags make it'.

I would definitely have at least one change of clothes in my carry-on, along with all the 'must have' items.

The other solution is condensing to fit the carry on rules:

Cabin baggage
One piece of cabin baggage per passenger not to exceed 23x40x55 in size and 8 kg in weight and one personal item as bag per passenger not to exceed 40x30x15 in size can be taken on board in the Economy Class. The personal item should not exceed 4 kg. Business Class passengers may carry two cabin bags if the bag sizes and weights do not exceed 23x40x55 and 8 kg (16 kg in total) and one personal item as bag per passenger, not to exceed 40x30x15 in size can be taken on board. The personal item should not exceed 4 kg. On domestic and international flights, economy and business class cabin baggage allowances for infant passengers are 1 piece/8 kg.

I flew from Chicago to Tel Aviv a couple weeks ago on Turkish and had about a 1 hour connection and 2 full checked suitcases. The Chicago departure was delayed by well over half an hour and not much of it was made up inflight. There were dozens of passengers with similar connection times. The flight attendants helped those seated in the rear to move up to empty seats near the front and other passengers let us ahead of them. Speed-walking with carry-on, huffing and puffing, I made it to the center of the airport and managed to get a ride from there to my departure gate which was near the end of another arm of the terminal. "Last Boarding" was flashing on all the boards along the way. I then sat on the plane for at least 20 minutes while a few more passengers boarded. Amazingly both my suitcases appeared on the baggage carousel just as I got there after passport control.

On my earlier flight TLV-IST-ORD, I had less than 1.5 hour connection. Again it took 15 minutes or more to get from gate to gate, but I still had time to shop at the duty free and my one checked suitcase arrived with me in Chicago.

I have had bags delayed more than a couple times. I have learned to pack everything I need for the first 48 hours in carry-on. Note that Turkish usually weighs your carry on at check-in. The limit is 8 kg. (17.6 lb). Make sure you have your second boarding pass when you check in and ask that your luggage be tagged priority because of the short connection.

I hope this lets you sleep easy. Turkish is a very comfortable airline with good entertainment and Venice is a wonderful place.