The connection was just over an hour. They did put me on the next flight, but the next flight was to JFK, 13 hours later in the morning.
EWR would have been 24 hours later.
I stayed in the airport airside, at Yotelair overnight. They wanted to give me a hotel outside in Istanbul, but being that my wife is American, and needs to get a visa which takes a while to get at the passport control, and being that I would have to get up early in the morning, we decided to stay airside. This way I was able to get up in the morning just before boarding. No more security and passport checks. But for that I had to pay on my own. That flight was delayed by 3 hours as well.
On the way to TLV, our flight was diverted to Izmir because the Istanbul airport was closed due to a heavy snowstorm. I booked my own hotel there too, and my own flights the next morning from Izmir to Antalya and from Antalya to TLV. Flights were cheap but overweight cost me $650 combined.
Later I heard that the people who stayed with the hotel that the airline provided and were waiting for re-bookings, had to wait in Izmir for 2 days.
My wife wouldn't fly with them again. She would rather fly in economy direct than in business with a stopover.
The worst part was the "I told you so" 😜
