By plane

1 Malatya Erhaç Airport (MLX IATA), Aksaray, ☏ +90 422 266 0046. This has several flights a day from Istanbul IST and SAW (2 hours), and daily from Ankara and Izmir. The low footfall means few facilities here, but car hire firms offer pre-booked pick-up / drop-off. It's 30 km northwest of the city, no bus, you need a taxi. (updated Oct 2025)

By train

High-speed YHT trains run as far as Sivas, where the train from Istanbul at 09:00 via Ankara at 13:20 connects with a regional train. This leaves Sivas around 17:00 to reach Malatya at 21:00, so the travel time from Ankara is 8 hours. The westbound train leaves at 08:00.

A slow train trundles daily from Ankara around 11:00, taking 16 hours via Kırıkkale, Kayseri and Sivas, then at 04:00 continues into the night. Five days a week this is the Güney Kurtalan Express to Diyarbakır, Batman and Kurtalan, another 10 hours. Two days a week it's Vangölü Express to Elazığ, Muş and Tatvan, for connections to Van, Tabriz and Tehran. Westbound trains call at Malatya at 19:30 to reach Sivas at midnight and Ankara at noon. Change at Sivas for the train to Erzincan, Erzurum, Kars and connections to Georgia.

Two days a week, 4 Eylül Mavi runs from Ankara at 19:00 by the same slow route, to terminate at Malatya at a more congenial 10:30 next morning. The return leaves Malatya at 15:30 to reach Sivas at 20:00 and Ankara at 07:30.

The train from Adana is suspended because of interminable engineering works near that city.

For timetables and online tickets see TCDD.

2 Malatya railway station was wrecked in the 2023 earthquake and has not yet been re-built, so there are almost no facilities there. It's 5 km northwest of city centre. Dolmuses and buses #1A and #1B run frequently to the central square.

By road

Malatya is on D-300, the 2000-km highway stretching from near Izmir on the Aegean coast to Van and the border with Iran. It's toll-free and mostly dual carriageway.

From Ankara follow O-21 toll motorway south to join D-300 near Aksaray then head east past Kayseri: altogether 685 km, 8 hours.

By bus

Buses from Istanbul take 16 hours via Bolu, Ankara and Sivas. From Ankara there's a dozen a day taking 9 hours. From Gaziantep ten a day take 4 hours. From Diyarbakır three a day take 4 hours 30 min via Elazığ.

Bus lines include Beydağı, Zafer Turizm, Metro Turizm and Kamil Koç, which is now part of Flixbus.

3 Otobus Terminali was damaged in the earthquake so facilities are makeshift. It's 6 km west of city centre, with frequent buses and dolmuşes.