Landing Between 11pm and 5am: How a Night Arrival Works

What stays the same

Your driver waits in the public arrivals hall with a board showing your name, exactly as he would at four in the afternoon. The flight is tracked by its number, the pickup follows the actual landing, and a delay costs nothing. The fixed price is the same as at any other hour.

What is different

The hall

At night it is either very quiet or very full — there is rarely anything in between. Three charter flights landing twenty minutes apart puts half the arrivals hall at passport control simultaneously. If only your aircraft lands, you are outside within minutes. Both are normal, and in both cases the driver is in the same spot.

The hotel at the other end

This is the part most likely to cause trouble, and it is not the transfer. Not every reception is staffed at half past three, and not every property will release a room before the standard check-in time. Settle it with your hotel before you fly — we can take you to the door, but we cannot open it.

The people with you

Children who have been awake for fourteen hours turn one hour in a vehicle into a different hour in a vehicle. If you are arriving at night with small children, it is worth reading booking a child seat beforehand, so the right seat is in the vehicle rather than being discussed in the hall.

No night surcharge

This is the question that comes up most, and the answer is short: no. The fixed price applies whatever the hour, and landing at 03:40 costs what landing at 13:40 costs. What is in the price and what is extra is set out in full in the price list.

What to keep within reach

None of this is compulsory, but at four in the morning every item you do not have to go looking for is a gain:

• Your driver's phone number — saved in your phone, not buried in an email.
• Something warmer for the drive. Nights on the Turkish coast outside high summer are considerably cooler than the day suggests.
• Water, and with children something to eat. Very little is open after you land.
• The hotel name in writing, in case you have to spell it half asleep.

The early-morning flight home

A night arrival and an early departure are two different things and are planned differently. The trip back to the airport has no fixed hour but a calculation backwards — how that is arrived at is in when should you leave your hotel for the airport.

Common questions