Sabihe Gokce Airport and Easyjet/Pegasus Airlines

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Read this with interest as I am flying the one way from Stansted to Dalaman early in 2010. It does seem to be a bit of rush to connect from Istanbul to Stansted and I would imagine, the same for the other direction to Dalaman. At least your luggage got put onto the plane for the second half of the journey. But this is something I will have to phone Pegasus about, because they replied (eventually)to my e mail saying I had to collect my luggage at Istanbul and re-check it in for the Dalaman leg. No way would there be time for this.
Myself like many other users here will read with interest anyone elses experience with these Stansted-Dalaman via Istanbul flights with Pegasus. I imagine quite a lot of us have booked these journeys as the price at the time of booking was next to nothing.
Good luck to us all.

quote:Originally posted by wallace

We travelled home from Dalaman via Sabihe Gokce to Stansted
last Monday the dalaman leg was a doddle you need to arrive at
the domestic airport (the old one for those that can remember it)
1 hour before departure, check in was stress free and we had a 15
min delay this was due to fog in Istanbul.

The stress began at Sabihe Gokce we had only 35 mins to catch the
connecting plane to Stansted, The new airport has just opened this
month so in fairness it could just be teething problems, you do not
need to collect your luggage thankfully that is forwarded to your
next flight and you are issued with your boarding pass for the
Stansted flight in Dalaman, so you you head for the exit in to the
main part of the airport and turn to your right and take the
escalator to the first floor which is International departures you
then head for passport control to go through to the departure area,
this is where the problems arose, there were only 2 booths open by
now our flight was due to leave in fifteen minutes and the queue was
loooong when we explained to the guy at the front filtering the queue
through, thinking he would let us through we were sent to the back of
the queue. It appears that there are pegasus flights from Adana,
Dalaman, Bodrum, Izmir,Ercan and maybe more all arriveing around
9.30am and International flights leaving around 10.30 to Stansted
Basle, Amsterdam and two other destinations which escape me at the
moment so you can imagine the chaos cause you must have at least
1500 people panicing to get there connecting flights, once through
passport control we ignored the duty free and headed for the gate
which was down an escalator into a small area, for so many people,
and once again only 2 security posts open it almost an hour to get
through!, tempers were frayed as more people coming down the escalator
meant that we had to move accross to let them in hence we never
seemed to get closer to the security post, we eventually got onto
a bus out to the plane which was next to the one that we had arrived
from Dalaman on  Arrrrgh!!! The final straw was sitting on the plane
for a further 45mins presumably because they were sorting the luggage
out[!]Hence arriving at Stansted over 2 hours late.

For those of you that have booked, it does appear that flights are
held and if not accomadation is found for you, knowing this will
hopefully keep your stress levels down, also this is a very new
schedule and I sincerely hope that Pegasus can streamline it. Extra
security posts open would have alleviated the situation greatly

Good luck:D

[wallace]

I called Pegasus whilst trying to make the booking because
online it wouldnt allow me to book as one booking, only two
seperate bookings, I was told NOT to do this as my luggage
would not go onto the next and there was not time to collect
and check in.

[Old Daffodil]

I have just read on another topic in the forum that someone is enquiring what it is like to travel through Sabihe Gocken airport with Pegasus. It sounds as if some people are not having a good experience. I am surprised that the airline can lower the baggage weight allowance after you arrive at the airport and charge excess baggage charges.

[Ovacikpeedoff]

I travelled with Pegasus from Dalaman to Istanbul and then onto Luton with Easyjet. All went well because there was 2 hours free time from arriving in Istanbul and checking in for the Luton flight. It is a pain with the return flight because there is a 6 hour delay that turned into 9 hours because of the Pegasus flight being late. For friends of ours the same journey on another day turned into a disaster because the Pegasus flight from Dalaman was cancelled. They missed the Luton flight and had to buy new tickets for the next Luton flight. Pegasus attitude was basically tough luck but you are getting nothing from us.

On the day I flew back to Dalaman the internal departure arrangments at Istanbul were a nightmare in that all flights no matter where you were going and by whatever airline were all through the same gate. There were nearly 2000 people all scrambling to get on flights at the same time.

The thing I learned quickly was getting annoyed was just raising my blood pressure as no one seemed to care. It is one of the great characteristics I love about the Turkish people in that they can remain so calm. Old people just sat there as if they did not have a care in the world.