Antalya Airport → Melas Lara Transfer

Melas Lara to Antalya Airport: return transfer & taxi

Departure mornings at this end of Lara are shaped by the neighbours. Several large hotels share the same few hundred metres of boulevard, and on changeover days their transfer coaches arrive within the same hour, pull in at the barriers and take their time loading. A private car does not wait for any of them, but it does have to get past them, so be in the lobby with the cases a few minutes before the agreed time and say at booking whether you will be waiting inside or at the gate.

Out of the gate, the car rejoins Lara Caddesi, passes back along the row of entrances it came in by and leaves the coast for the airport road. The terminals are 18 km and roughly 25 minutes away, and none of that distance runs through Antalya itself, so the city's rush hour never touches this trip. For a flight in the small hours the boulevard is empty and the time holds easily; what deserves the margin is the security screening at the terminal doors, which is where departures from Antalya lose their minutes in high season.

• Send the flight number with the booking so the driver knows which of Antalya's terminal buildings to pull up at.
• If the room is handed back hours before the pickup, ask reception to hold the cases and collect them on the way out, so the car is loaded in one go.
• Being this close to the airport tempts people to leave late: work the pickup back from the departure time and the check-in queue, not from the short distance.