Review: Turkish Airlines Business Lounge Istanbul Airport
This review details the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge at Istanbul Airport (IST).
An Istanbul layover
After a fun journey in business class on the Turkish Airlines Airbus A350, I found myself at Istanbul Airport.
As my connecting flight to Birmingham wasn’t scheduled until early the next morning, I had the entire night to spend at the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge at Istanbul Airport.
Exploring Istanbul Airport
Istanbul Airport (IATA code: IST) is a sprawling place and walking distances can be lengthy, especially when you need to traverse from one end of the terminal to the opposite end.
Istanbul Airport consists of a central terminal building with two gate areas (the C and E gates), as well as five distinct piers with numerous gates (A, B, D, F, and G) extending from this central part.
All the airport lounges of Istanbul Airport, including the two Turkish Airlines lounges, are located in the central part of the terminal.
If you have the time, it’s quite a pleasure to walk around this large airport.
The terminal is modern and spacious, and it’s fun to watch all the different flight departures and people from all over the world congregating at this global hub.
Turkish Airlines lounges at Istanbul Airport
There are two Turkish Airlines lounges at Istanbul Airport: The Turkish Airlines Business Lounge and the Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles Lounge.
Both of these lounges are open 24/7.
These two Turkish Airlines lounges at Istanbul Airport are almost completely identical – in fact, they are mirror images of each other!
However, there is a distinction between them when it comes to their entry requirements, and there are slight differences in the lounge facilities, as the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge has a few extra amenities that you won’t find in the Miles&Smiles Lounge.
You’ll find the escalator that brings you up to the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge between gate E1 and the large duty free shop behind it.
There is also a lift to the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge, which can be found if you walk clockwise from here around the duty-free shop towards the central hall of the concourse.
Turkish Airlines Business Lounge entry requirements
The Turkish Airlines Business Lounge is the designated lounge at Istanbul Airport for business class travellers who are booked on Turkish Airlines or a Star Alliance partner.
Star Alliance gold status holders who are flying in economy class on Turkish Airlines or another Star Alliance carrier cannot access the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge, but are instead sent to the Miles&Smiles Lounge.
It’s not possible to bring in guests at the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge.
If you fly in business class and hold Star Alliance gold status, you therefore must use the Miles&Smiles lounge if you want to bring a guest with you.
Access to the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge at Istanbul Airport is not available through Priority Pass or any other lounge membership programme, and entry cannot be purchased.
A look around the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge
The Turkish Airlines Business Lounge is a vast space and if it’s your first time visiting the lounge you are well-advised to have a walk around the place to get orientated.
There are several distinct seating areas, each with its own character and various types of seats.
As you enter the lounge, you can turn left for the business centre and shower rooms, while the main lounge area is to your right beyond the grand piano.
If you head this way, you will first walk across the main dining area with a couple of live cooking stations and seats around dining tables, eventually ending up at the main buffet area.
This part of the lounge has the feeling of a rustic country tavern, and it’s the best place to sit down if you intend to have a meal.
Towards both the left and right side you will find some smaller seating areas, such as a tea room and a library room, both with comfortable chairs and couches.
At the far end of the lounge, you will arrive on a large balcony terrace overlooking the main airport concourse below.
Here, you will find many more sofas, as well as dining tables.
Even though the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge lacks direct views over the apron, it feels bright and airy thanks to the high ceilings and abundant natural light that indirectly illuminates the lounge.
Food in the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge
The Turkish Airlines Business Lounge in Istanbul has a reputation for its good quality food, which in my opinion is completely justified.
Besides an extensive buffet, you will also find several live cooking stations in the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge, where a team of chefs freshly prepares authentic Turkish dishes.
These live cooking stations serve breakfast dishes until around 11 am, after which they switch to lunch and dinner service, which continues until approximately midnight (a more limited selection of food is available during nighttime hours).
In the middle of the lounge, you can find the main buffet counter, which is an extensive salad bar featuring various fresh and healthy salads, fruits, spreads, and cheeses.
Around this salad bar you can find most of the live cooking stations.
At the live cooking stations inside the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge, you can get freshly made pide (Turkish pizza), grilled meat and veggies, moussaka, pasta, manti (dumplings filled with minced meat), gözleme (flatbread with spinach), pasta, chicken tandoori, and lentils with rice.
Inside the library section as well as on the balcony terrace, you will find a buffet counter with a selection of baklava and Turkish delight.
At the balcony terrace, you can also find a buffet counter with a selection of sweets and desserts, such as chocolate cake, fruit tarts, and other pies.
The food is delicious, and I appreciate how Turkish Airlines showcases the diverse cuisine of Turkey.
Breakfast
During the morning, one of the live cooking stations in the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge offers cooked-to-order eggs and omelettes.
At another buffet counter, you can get lentil soup, scrambled eggs, as well as menemen, a delicious Turkish breakfast dish consisting of eggs, tomatoes and peppers.
You can also get traditional Turkish simit breads (a kind of bagel) as well as a selection of sandwiches.
Drinks
The Turkish Airlines Business Lounge also excels when it comes to drinks.
On multiple locations throughout the lounge, you will find self-serve fridges with a selection of Turkish and international soft drinks, bottled water, and Efes beer.
Additionally, you’ll find jars of fruit juices, and a dispenser with ayran (a salty Turkish yogurt drink) in the lounge.
The Turkish Airlines Business Lounge also has two coffee counters, where a barista makes you a good quality espresso, cappuccino, latte, or Turkish coffee.
Although you can also grab some tea here from a large dispenser, you will find a wider selection of Turkish and international teas in the tea room.
Alcohol
A diverse range of self-pour alcoholic drinks is also available in the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge in Istanbul.
This includes Efes beer, which you will find in the fridges, as well as strong liqueurs such as Hennessy Cognac and Johnny Walker whiskey, which you can find on a drinks cart together with some other bottles of strong alcohol.
At two locations within the lounge, you will also come across a wine cart featuring various types of Turkish white, rosé, and red wines.
Some of these wines are good quality, and it’s enjoyable to taste some of these unique Turkish wines considering that they aren’t as widely known across the world.
Sparkling wine (a Prosecco) is also available at the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge.
Restrooms
Restrooms are available at two locations inside the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge, so you never really have to wait when nature calls.
With a cleaner assigned to each restroom area, the toilets are consistently maintained in a clean condition.
Showers
If you wish to use a shower, you need to report to the reception desk located behind the business centre, which you will find by turning left as you enter the lounge.
Shower rooms are generally readily available throughout the day, although during the morning rush, you may need to wait before being able to use one.
In such cases, you will be provided with a beeper that will buzz once the shower is available.
I do like the shower rooms at the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge as they are large, featuring a separate toilet, a bench for sitting or placing your bag, and a clothes rack with a bathrobe.
A hairdryer as well as an amenity kit with some slippers, a shower cap, comb, toothbrush, and toothpaste, is provided.
Soap, shower gel and shampoo are provided in brandless dispensers.
Sleeping room
The Turkish Airlines Business Lounge also offers private sleeping rooms for passengers, though you must meet a strict set of requirements to access them.
These nap rooms only given to passengers who have a flight connection between four and nine hours, with one of these flights being a long-haul flight that is longer than eight hours in duration.
Flights must be on Turkish Airlines metal, so if you are flying on another Star Alliance carrier (even when it’s a Turkish Airlines codeshare) you are excluded from using them.
In case you don’t qualify for on of the sleeping rooms inside the lounge and have a layover that is longer than 9 hours, you may be eligible for free hotel accommodation outside the airport.
Children’s play area
The Turkish Airlines Business Lounge is also an excellent place for young kids, who will enjoy the children’s play area and the miniature racing track.
There are also some attractions that can be enjoyed by both older kids and adults, such as the Virtual Reality flying simulator and a golf simulator.
Business centre
The Turkish Airlines lounge features a business centre with semi-private work pods, as well as free-to-use computers and a printer.
There is also a meeting room which you can use upon request.
Wi-Fi internet
To access the Wi-Fi internet network in the lounge, you need to enter your frequent flyer account number on the login page.
The Wi-Fi network in the lounge is usually reliable, and has fairly good speeds.
If you intend to use your laptop or keep other electronic devices such as your mobile phone charged, you need to be careful where you sit in the lounge, as perhaps only a third or so of all seats have access to a power socket.
Other facilities
Upon entering the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge, you will immediately find storage lockers that you can freely use.
This is an excellent option if you want to store your hand luggage while you enjoy the lounge, or even want to visit some of the airport shops without having to drag along your trolley.
The Turkish Airlines Business Lounge also has a free ironing service, although this is only available from 7am until 11pm.
My lounge experience
As it was already late when I arrived in the lounge (11.45 pm) and had an overnight layover ahead, my priority was finding the best place for a nap.
The Turkish Airlines lounges aren’t ideal for overnight layovers given that there is always quite a crowd and there are only limited loungers and other comfortable chairs available where you can lie down a bit.
Fortunately, I managed to find a lounger in a hidden corner of the lounge, right next to some kind of storage area, where I was undisturbed by other guests and lounge staff walking by.
I enjoyed some pide and a glass of red wine before dozing off for a few hours.
The next morning, I felt relatively rested, and enjoyed some breakfast and a much-needed coffee before heading to the departure gate for my onward flight to Birmingham.
Conclusion
The Turkish Airlines Business Lounge in Istanbul is one of Europe’s best lounges thanks to its wide selection of quality food.
In addition to an extensive salad bar and buffet counters filled with baklava and other sweets, the lounge features several live cooking stations where chefs freshly prepare delicious Turkish meals.
The Turkish Airlines Business Lounge offers a great selection of drinks as well, including barista-made coffee and a wide range of Turkish wines.
With readily available and well-appointed shower rooms, private sleeping rooms, a business centre, ironing service, children’s play area, Virtual Reality flying simulator, and a golf simulator, there are several other stand-out lounge facilities.
Overall, the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge is well-worth to visit for a few hours!
Trip report index
This article is part of the ‘From Cornwall to Yorkshire: Train Travel Through England‘ trip report, which consists of the following chapters:
1. My British Airways Cancellation and Compensation Saga
2. Review: Turkish Airlines Airbus A350 Business Class Bucharest to Istanbul
3. Review: Turkish Airlines Business Lounge Istanbul Airport (current chapter)
4. Review: Turkish Airlines Airbus A321 Business Class Istanbul to Birmingham
5. Review: CrossCountry Train Birmingham International to Reading
6. Thirsty in Tyburnia: Spending a Sunny Afternoon in London
7. London Paddington and the GWR First Class Lounge
8. Review: GWR Night Riviera Sleeper Train London to Penzance, Cornwall
9. Penzance: A Visit to Cornwall’s Down-to-Earth Seaside Town
10. By Train to St Ives: A Trip on the Branch Line From St Erth
** rest of the chapters to follow soon **
Great report Koen and I agree, I think this is one of my favourite lounges anywhere. When the current airport opened, I expected a lounge which was a slight downgrade on the one at Ataturk because most airlines seem to downgrade everything these days but the new IST lounge is at least as good and in some regards much better than the one at Ataturk. I also love the design of it and I never get bored there but it is easy to put on weight during a wait!
When I was there 14.2.2024, they had no Cocktails, same as in December 2023. No Whisky, no Rum, no Vodka, no Cognac. Why are You lying to us? The food is the cheapest shit I have ever got. Meat served cold. Breakfast cooked eggs cold. Cheap Pizza and tasteless Noodle shit. Oily salads. Oversweet industrial deserts. Undrinkable cheap wines. Nice lounge with the cheapest Catering, lower than Indian Airlines.
I’m not lying – I’m describing my experience and how I found the lounge during my trip. It can happen that there have been changes since, either temporary or permanent. It’s important to remember that every single review or trip report you read on the internet or watch on YouTube is just showing you how the experience was at that single moment.
As someone who actually flies Turkish on a regular basis, I can tell you that changes happen more often than you think. The booze cart has been temporarily removed (and made comebacks) before. If you have been to the lounge in February you probably saw as well that Turkish Airlines has temporarily removed Coca Cola products – for the stupid political reason that these products are American and thus deemed “pro-Israel”. Again, this happened before – it’s not the first time Turkish companies have been boycotting Coca Cola over something happening in the Middle East. When the conflict in Gaza calms down you will most likely see Turkish Airlines quietly backtracking and putting Coca Cola products back on the shelves.
It’s a bit weird though how you describe that “cooked eggs” were cold. They are prepared right in front of your nose in the Turkish lounge at a live cooking station so cannot possibly be cold! I advise you to eat them faster next time and not let them cool off too much 😉
There are always things to be critical about, and there surely are some valid reasons to criticise Turkish, but their catering ain’t one. Calling Turkish Airlines catering (done by DO&CO, one of the most renowned airline catering companies) the cheapest is just nonsense. And by saying that it’s lower than “Indian Airlines” (whatever that may be – as no such airline exists!) you are completely disqualifying yourself.
I actually missed the business lounge despite travelling in business class due to lay over of just 3 hours i was not able to locate the lounge. The sign boards for business lounge on airport are not proper.
Ok it’s huge and spacious but the boss of this lounge should go back to business school, scarce are the labels explaining what’s on offer at the various stands, the beverages, all Turkish are not explained or described, and the staff can be rough or rude. It’s not up to TK’s cuisine reputation at all