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I've noticed that there's been far lower costs for flights that include stops in Istanbul. I assume its because of the bombing recently.

I want to fly from Australia to Albania. Many of the flights include Istanbul as a flight stop. Is it safe to stop there?

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    Flights through IST have often been cheap in the past already, the pricing is likely not related to the attack. For the rest, see the duplicate.
    – mts
    Jul 4, 2016 at 6:38
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    This has been wrongly marked as the duplicate of a question about tight connections in Istanbul, not safety per se. Jul 4, 2016 at 10:45
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    As @mts mentioned, Turkish Airlines started offering very good deals recently to many Asian countries. I bought very cheap tickets from Europe to Vietnam several weeks before the attack, traveling later in Winter. I'm personally not worried about the security there, mostly because now that it's a recent target, it's protected even better and attackers don't tend to choose the same place twice in a short interval. Furthermore, in case you're staying in the airside transit zone, even a possible attack has very little chance in getting there as there are two layers of security checks before that.
    – downhand
    Jul 5, 2016 at 7:16
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    Personally I wouldn't have any problem connecting in Istanbul. I can imagine your parents may be concerned though.
    – Berwyn
    Jul 5, 2016 at 7:37
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    Consider that the number of living suicide bombers in Turkey has just gone down by three. There are not that many of them, because they tend to die.
    – gnasher729
    Jul 5, 2016 at 11:09

1 Answer 1

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Of course your question is very subjective and there won't be a correct answer, but I want to give you some details on the safety layout of the airport in Istanbul.

I went through the airport this January (before the bomb attack in central Istanbul) and as opposed to other airports that I have been too, there was an additional security check right at the entrance of the airport where the taxis stop. This is quite a thorough check with scanners and metal detectors and it would be quite difficult to get anything like a gun or a bomb through that. As a matter of fact, this was the only time in my week in Istanbul where I thought a safety check was actually serious (as compared to those at the attractions inside the city). I believe those checks where also the reason why the recent attacks happened at the taxi stands (afaik) and not inside the airport like those in Brussels.

Considering this, and the fact that you are just transiting and probably not leaving the airside area of the airport, this puts at least two check points between you and any potential attacker from the outside and should make it relatively safe inside the airport.

Of course safety is always subjective, and you might argue my argument doesn't hold up for any threat coming by plane or already being inside the airport.

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