The story of United Travel Services is the story of Turkish hospitality made professional, carried by three generations of one family.
"Sevdiğin işi, sevdiğin stilde yapmak."
"Doing the work you love, in the style you love."
Her story begins in Ankara in 1959, when a broken shoe heel stopped a fresh TED Ankara Koleji graduate outside a Swissair office and a classmate mentioned the ticket counter was hiring. Nine months of 3 a.m. airport check-ins later, the airline world had her for good.
Degrees in English literature and classical archaeology followed, then thirteen years with Pan American World Airways and thirteen more building one of İstanbul's leading agencies, years in which she brought United Airlines to Türkiye and absorbed what she calls the airline's discipline: exact, punctual, allergic to error.
In 1995 she founded United Travel Services with her daughter, the late Didem, deliberately declining mass-market internet business to serve the member advisors of the world's leading travel networks, guest by guest. Today her grandson, Çınar Ark, carries the firm into its third generation, while Ms. Üstman, never without one of her famous hats, still teaches at TÜRSAB and keeps an eye on every file.
Nurdan Üstman receiving the Skål Lifetime Achievement Award, İstanbul, 2025.
A broken shoe heel in Ankara leads a TED Koleji graduate to a Swissair ticket counter. Ms. Üstman's life in travel begins.
Pan American World Airways, Ankara, thirteen years of airline discipline and American marketing training.
General manager and partner of one of İstanbul's leading travel agencies for thirteen years; incoming, yachts, congresses. In these years she brings United Airlines to Türkiye as its general sales agent.
Nurdan's United Travel Services Inc. is founded in İstanbul with her daughter, the late Didem, who steered the firm's operations and finances at her mother's side for twenty-five years. “She was my joy of life, my sunshine,” says Nurdan. She lives in the hearts of everyone who was lucky enough to know her.
Galataport opens, shore excursion operations move to the heart of the city. Çınar Ark, the third generation, represents the firm at the networks' annual conferences.
Three generations on, the promise is unchanged: every guest personally met.
Every hotel, restaurant and route in our programmes is inspected in person by our own team, season after season.
Advisors work with a single, senior operations owner from first enquiry to the guests' flight home.
A 24/7 WhatsApp duty line in English for every travelling guest.
"Team happiness first, then guest happiness, then profit, in that order. That is why I have always been at ease."Nurdan Üstman · TÜRSAB TV Interview, 2023
Skål International
