DALAMANIA

Whoever is in charge at Dalaman airport obviously doesn’t care about tourist numbers declining in this part of Turkey.
If you are leaving at the height of, and in the hottest part of, the season, you have to queue outside in searing heat, to get through security. There is a large and very impressive looking area inside, but of course you can’t get to that until you have gone through the scanners.
Once through check-in the only places to sit are in the bars and cafes. Last Monday, at 8.00 pm I went to one of the bars for a drink. No other customers and no-one was serving, though I could see two pairs of legs behind the kitchen area door. So I went to the next bar. One barman behind the counter, four in front of it chatting with him and having a smoke. There was customer there though, just one !
I wanted a G&T - , 24 ytl! that’s about £9 ! It’s the same for all the spirits . Beers were equally expensive. The barman said that the prices had been increased again this year from the high levels last year.
In the three other bars I counted a further 6 customers, and 7 more bar staff, chatting or cleaning and obviously bored. So I saw a total of 8 customers and 14 bar staff. But that evening there were a lot of flights and 8.00pm is a time when people generally welcome a drink.
The laughably called duty free shops were also pretty empty, but then my favourite night cream costs more there than it does in Boots in the UK high street.
Most of the travellers go straight to the departure gate to get a seat. These are obviously designed to dissuade people from doing that, but sitting on uncomfortable, hard. wooden ribs is better than paying the airport prices in the bars and cafes.
The tannoy system reminded me of British rail, unintelligible, and the departure staff have to shout out instructions.
How can the people who run the airport,get it so wrong !
This is time when Turkey needs tourism but Dalaman airport - the last place visited by holiday makers and their last memory of Turkey, is, I think most would say, the last place they would want to visit again.