Route brief · LAX → IST
Los Angeles → Istanbul
$381
−54% vs typical
seasonal median $835 · difference $454
Sep 15 – Oct 17 · 32 nights
Royal Air Maroc1 stop
- Usual monthly lows
- $714–$905
- Board rank
- Stronger than 97%
- Route sample
- 10 observed months
Cached fare — the booking search re-prices live before you pay.
Destination briefISTIstanbulTwo continents, one skyline of minarets. Turkish Airlines’ mega-hub means constant fare battles.Best windowApr–May · Sep–OctAirportsIstanbul (IST) · Sabiha Gökçen (SAW)All routes into IstanbulWhen this route gets cheap.
Cached-fare history: across 10 months, Sep is the cheapest for LA → IST. Best time to be there: Apr–May · Sep–Oct.
Fares bottom out in September around $381 and peak in June near $971 — a $590 spread across the 10 months we track. The cheapest itinerary we are tracking makes one stop and takes about 15.5 hours outbound, on a 32-night trip — ticketed under Royal Air Maroc, which on a connecting fare need not operate every leg. At $381 for 11,020 km each way, that works out to about $17 per 1,000 km flown. That is well under the $40 that ultra-long-haul fares on this board typically run. Of the 14 departure cities we track at a similar distance from Istanbul, this is the cheapest right now — 7% under the next one, Washington. It is also the 3rd cheapest of the 54 routes of similar length we watch out of Los Angeles.
Cheapest day in the next 3 months: Sep 15 · $378 (62% below median)
Tap any day → live search
The median cached fare across this calendar is 5% lower than when tracking began on Aug 8 — $962 then versus $910 now, across 5 recorded snapshots. This is a calendar-level trend, so an individual deal above can be lower. The lowest single day we have seen here is $378, on Sep 15.
September 2026
October 2026
Cheapest in Sep · around $381
54% below the $835 typical fare
Cheapest round-trip fare found per month · Los Angeles → Istanbul · cached-price history
Route facts
- Airports
- LAX · Burbank (BUR) · Long Beach (LGB) ↔ Istanbul (IST) · Sabiha Gökçen (SAW)
- Flight time
- ~15.5 hours outbound
- Distance
- ~11,020 km each way
- Typical price
- $835 round-trip (seasonal median)
- Airlines on the board
- Royal Air Maroc
- Itineraries
- Connections on current fares
- Best months to visit
- Apr–May · Sep–Oct
LA → IST, answered.
Is $381 a good price for Los Angeles to Istanbul?
Yes — the seasonal median for this route is around $835 round-trip. At $381 you're 54% below that, saving about $454, which we rate rare for this route.
What is the cheapest month to fly from Los Angeles to Istanbul?
Across 10 months of cached-fare history, Sep comes out cheapest on this route. The best months to actually be in Istanbul are Apr–May · Sep–Oct — when those overlap, that's your window.
How far in advance should I book LA → Istanbul?
We do not publish a number for this, because we cannot measure it yet. Answering it honestly means watching the same departure date on this route over many weeks as it approaches, and that archive is still filling up — so any "book N days ahead" figure here would be borrowed from somewhere else rather than measured. What we can measure is which month is cheap: across 10 months of cached fares, Sep comes out lowest on this route. See /guides/what-moves-a-flight-price/ for what does move a fare.
Are there nonstop flights from Los Angeles to Istanbul?
The current cheapest fares involve a connection, ticketed under Royal Air Maroc. Nonstop options exist on many dates at higher prices — check the live search for your exact dates.
Are these prices guaranteed?
No — these are cached fares found on real searches (this one on September 1). Airlines reprice constantly, so the booking search re-checks the live price before you pay. Fresher finds are far more likely to still be available.
Next step
Sleeping in Istanbul?
Lock the flight first — then compare stays for Sep 15 – Oct 17 · 32 nights.
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