Turkish Airlines new joiner accommodation in Istanbul for foreign crew: the first months, the housing allowance and where crew actually live

British at Turkish Airlines, and the Istanbul housing thread on here covers neighbourhoods but not the foreign crew specifics, which are different from the Turkish crew experience because we arrive without a family flat and without knowing the city.

The first months

Foreign hires are given accommodation for the training period and an initial settling period. It is a shared arrangement in a building near the training centre and the airport, basic and clean, with the rules you would expect. It is not the Gulf dormitory model; it is closer to a company guesthouse. The Turkish crew in your batch mostly live at home and will look at your accommodation with pity and then invite you to their mothers' houses for dinner, which is the best thing about the first months.

The housing allowance

After the initial period, foreign crew move to a housing allowance and find their own place. The allowance is in lira and adjusted with the agreement; it covers a shared flat in the districts near the airport comfortably and a solo flat less comfortably. This is the moment most foreign crew make the mistake I made: renting in the district they like on the Bosphorus and discovering the 4am commute to the new airport is 70 minutes and the evening return is two hours.

Where crew actually live

The experienced foreign crew live in the districts on the European side within 30 to 45 minutes of the new airport: Başakşehir, Bahçeşehir, parts of Beylikdüzü, and the newer developments around the airport road. They are not the Istanbul of the postcards. They are where you sleep between duties. Crew go into the city on days off. The Turkish crew who live in the old city or on the Asian side do it because their families are there and they have decided the commute is worth it. You do not have that reason.

Renting as a foreigner

You need the residence permit (the company handles it), a Turkish tax number, a bank account, and usually a guarantor or a larger deposit. Landlords are used to THY crew and some buildings near the airport are half crew. Ask the foreign crew in your batch for the buildings; there is always a WhatsApp group with the current list.

The lira and the rent

Rent is quoted in lira and has risen fast. The allowance has risen with the agreement but not always at the same speed. Sharing is the norm for the first two years. Some foreign crew negotiate rent in a hard currency, which landlords near the airport sometimes accept because they know what crew earn on the international routes.

What I would do differently

Take the shared flat near the airport in month one, learn the city on days off, and only move somewhere beautiful in year two when I knew what the commute would cost me. And learn enough Turkish to argue with a landlord before signing anything, because the contract will be in Turkish.