San Diego (SAN) to Istanbul (IST): 6,882 miles (11,076 km) great-circle, about 14h 15m nonstop by our estimate. Cheapest fare observed: $798 round-trip on Lufthansa, with 1 stop, departing May 5, 2026.
$798 round-trip, Lufthansa LH467, departing 2026-05-05 at 17:15, returning 2026-05-13. The recorded itinerary left on a Tuesday, returning on a Wednesday 8 nights later; the fare was observed 10 days before departure. "Book this flight" opens Kiwi.com with the same airline and dates.
At $798, it ranked 28th of the 30 round-trip fares we recorded from SAN (median $279). That is 11.6 cents per great-circle mile (round-trip price over one-way distance), below the SAN median of 15.0 cents across 30 round-trip routes.
Routes from SAN of similar length: Moscow (6,127 mi) at $1670 and Barcelona (6,029 mi) at $869.
SAN to IST is the only one of 30 SAN routes where Lufthansa priced cheapest. It is the longest of the 30 routes we track from SAN.
Of 117 departure airports with a fare to Istanbul, San Diego (SAN) ranked 79th at $798. Lowest: $60 from Antalya (AYT); highest: $1639 from Wellington (WLG); 29 nonstop. Cheapest-fare airlines (routes): Pegasus Airlines (13), Qatar (7), WestJet (6), Wizz Air (6), Gulf Air (5) and Turkish (5), plus 51 more.
Travelpayouts fares (cheapest per route, observed April 25, 2026); OurAirports coordinates and elevations; IANA zones America/Los_Angeles, Europe/Istanbul; flight time is our estimate.