A friend recently asked me if the whole of Turkey was as expensive as Istanbul Airport. Having been to Turkey (and both of Istanbul’s airports) a few times, I never found myself baulking at the price of a meal out in the wild the way I did at the vendors in the airport. 

But why on earth are Istanbul’s airports so expensive? The Turkish Lira fluctuates pretty rapidly, and it’s certainly true that inflation in the country has pushed prices up a fair bit. From what I can tell, though, there’s no obvious reason behind the surged airport snack costs other than the fact that they can. Like all airports, vendors there have a captive (and often under-prepared) audience.

I, too, have been one of the under-prepared. After a couple of run-ins with a £10/$13 simit (for the uninitiated, that’s a simple sesame-covered cross between a bagel and a pretzel) and a £20+ off-brand fast food burger meal at Istanbul International, I had hopes that a layover at Istanbul’s second airport would be kinder on the pocket.

How wrong I was.