Gwen Muirhead

Last Easter i had a horrendous experience travelling from manchester to izmir by Turkish Airlines. My baggage was booked through to Izmir at Manchester airport. I expected to collect my bags at Izmir as happened on previous trips. I read in the in-flight magazine about the change in procedures whereby it is necessary to collect your bags at Istanbul and transfer them yourself to the domestic flight. We didn't have a lot of time in Istanbul to catch our Izmir connection and the whole experience at Istanbul was a nightmare. We did manage to catch our connection and our bags did arrive at Izmir on the same flight.

Has anyone recently flown to Izmir via Istanbul recently and if so is the procedure the same? I will be booking a flight from Manchester to Izmir in early March and Turkish Airlines seems to be the cheapest so I'd like to know if it is still necessary to collect bags at Istanbul and transfe r them to the connecting flight. I can only assume this is necessary because you arrive at the domestic terminal on the the flight from Istanbul to Izmir.

Thanks

Gwen

canim

It Is the same Gwen,

Luggage now has to be transfered at the port of entry with Turkish Airlines, you also now have to go thru customs & get your visa in Istanbul, rather than Izmir.

bryn

Gwen last time I did this was going the other way from Antalya to London Via IST. At IST we had to reclaim luggage and recheck it in and the baggage took over 45 minutes to get to the carousel against which the clock was running on the flight to London I asked one of the Turkish airlines staff what was happeneing to which he replied it wasnt their fault it was the baggage handling companys fault. This was red rag to a bull and I carefully explained to him at the top of my voice that Turkish airlines contract the baggage handling company and therefore it was their fault to which he almost ran away but 1 minute later the baggage was on the carousel. Moral is sometimes its the only way they understand customer service.