Domestic Flights in Turkey: Airlines, Baggage Rules and Booking Tips

Turkey is bigger than people expect. Istanbul to Van is roughly the distance from London to Rome, and the overnight bus takes about twenty hours. Domestic flights are the reason a two-week trip can include Cappadocia, the Aegean coast and the southeast without spending half of it on a motorway.

They are also cheap, frequent and genuinely easy to use. The only things that catch visitors out are baggage rules that are hidden inside the fare, and the fact that Istanbul has two airports an hour and a half apart.

The airlines

Turkish Airlines

The full-service national carrier, flying from Istanbul Airport and to almost every airport in the country. More expensive than the others, more reliable when the weather turns, and the only one that routinely gives you a proper snack and a checked bag in the base fare. If you are connecting from an international Turkish Airlines flight, booking the domestic leg on the same ticket means your bag is checked through and you are protected if the first flight is late. That protection alone is often worth the price difference.

AJet

Turkish Airlines' low-cost brand, which replaced AnadoluJet. It runs a dense domestic network, with Ankara and Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen as its main bases, and it is often the cheapest way into eastern Turkey. Fares are sold in bundles, so read what is included before you compare prices.

Pegasus

The big independent low-cost carrier, based at Sabiha Gökçen. Usually the cheapest fare on any busy route. Like all low-cost airlines, the headline price is a seat and a cabin bag; everything else is extra, and the extras add up quickly if you are travelling with a suitcase.

SunExpress

Strong on routes touching İzmir and Antalya, and a useful option if you are flying between two cities without going through Istanbul at all.

Baggage, which is the part that costs people money

Hand luggage is the same across the board and it is stricter than you may be used to: one cabin bag, maximum 8 kg, up to 55 x 40 x 23 cm. Unlike many European carriers, Turkish airports genuinely weigh cabin bags at domestic check-in and at the gate. A 10 kg carry-on that sails through other airports will be stopped here.

Checked baggage depends entirely on which fare you bought. Turkish Airlines publishes clear allowances for its domestic fare families:

Pegasus sells its domestic tickets as Saver, Saver Plus and Comfort Flex packages, and AJet uses its own bundles. Both include one 8 kg cabin bag on domestic flights, but the checked allowance changes with the package and the airlines price baggage dynamically, which means the figure on the booking screen is the one that counts. Check it before you pay rather than at the airport, because adding a bag online is always cheaper than adding it at the desk.

Two things worth knowing. Turkish domestic allowances are by total weight, not by number of pieces, so two small bags at 7 kg each fit a 15 kg allowance. And if you are over, buying the extra kilos through the airline's website or app before you leave for the airport costs a fraction of what the desk charges.

The Istanbul mistake

Istanbul has two airports and they are not interchangeable.

They are roughly 70 km apart with the Bosphorus and Istanbul traffic in between. Crossing from one to the other takes anywhere from ninety minutes to three hours depending on the time of day. Every year a large number of travellers book an outbound from one and a return into the other without noticing, or allow two hours to transfer between them and miss the second flight.

Check the three-letter code on your booking, not the word Istanbul. If you are connecting between a Pegasus flight and a Turkish Airlines flight, assume the transfer will be painful and leave half a day for it, or pay more to keep everything at one airport.

Booking: when, where and how

• Book three to six weeks ahead for the best fares. Domestic prices climb steeply in the last fortnight and the cheapest fares disappear first.
• Avoid the religious holidays entirely if you can. During Ramazan Bayramı and Kurban Bayramı the whole country travels at once. Flights sell out weeks in advance and the remaining seats cost several times the normal fare. Plan around these dates rather than through them.
• Book directly with the airline. Changes, refunds and seat selection are all easier, and third-party sites add a margin on domestic routes where the fares are already thin.
• Compare in the same currency. Airline sites sometimes price in lira and sometimes in euros depending on where you appear to be browsing from; check which one you are seeing before deciding anything is a bargain.
• Carry your passport. Turkish citizens fly domestically on a national ID card, but foreign visitors need a passport at check-in and at security. A driving licence will not do.

Which airport for where

A few destinations have more than one sensible airport, and the choice matters.

If you would rather not assemble this yourself, our Cappadocia and Central Anatolia Tour and Aegean Region Tour already have the internal logistics built in, which is usually the better choice when a trip involves three or four regions.

At the airport

Arrive ninety minutes before a domestic departure, and two hours at Istanbul Airport, which is enormous and where the walk to a far gate can genuinely take twenty minutes. Online check-in opens twenty-four hours ahead and is worth doing, but if you have a bag to drop you still need to be there early.

Security rules match international flights: liquids in containers of 100 ml or less, in a clear bag, laptops out. Domestic terminals in Turkey are modern, clean and well signposted in English, and there is almost always somewhere decent to eat airside.

One last thing. Fog and high winds close airports in eastern Turkey more often than you would expect in winter, especially Van, Erzurum and Kars. If a winter domestic flight is the only link between two parts of your trip, leave a day of slack behind it rather than connecting straight onto an international departure.