http://www.aegeanflights.com/
Fly from Gatwick and Manchester 27th December to Dalaman but they are a lot more expensive than the ones you said.

Checked the link thanks - well got as far as the Gatwick flight which was £1230 for the three of us but this was still for 7 nights and we need to go for 5. Looks likely that we'll be going with THY via Istanbul with a night on the floor at Istanbul airport
EDIT: Checked the Manchester flight 27/12 returning 3/3 and this came to £1527. We've flown to Australia for less

Go from Luton to Istanbull with Easyjet, then Thy Istanbull to Dalaman, It will be cheaper and possibly better timeing for you.

Thanks - will check that one out. We are 20 minutes from Luton so that would be ideal for us!

Checked out Easyjet but it will be hard work! Cost is £575 with EZY plus YTL995 so still around the 1K mark. EZY flys to Sabiha Gökçen so we would need to get to Istanbul Airport as THY only fly to Dalaman from there but that said, we have hours of free time to do so. I think we'll stick to the original option of Turkish Airlines. In future years, if we go to Turkey in the Winter, I'll make sure we can go for 7 nights and go with Thomas Cook as they only wanted £142 each!

flythomascook do winter flights but looks like they are for 7 nights too for around £223 return from gatwick to dalaman, i think only going for 5 nights might put the cost up.

Hunt around you will find cheaper flights from Istanbull to Dalaman I have seen them in the past for less than 150 lira per person return, Thy are not a cheap frills airline and dont do cheap flights internally, Other no frills ones are pegasus, http://www.flypgs.com/
and sun express, http://www.sunexpress.com.tr/ http://www.sunexpress.com.tr/

Hi Cazzholly,

I've flown Turkish Airlines to Dalaman via Istanbul many times during the winter, and I always used to take the lunchtime flight from Heathrow arriving at Istanbul around about 6ish (local time) and I'd then catch the connecting flight to Dalaman about 2 hours later. I'd usually arrive in Dalaman between 21.00 and 22.00 depending.

They must still be offering a similar service given that they're a scheduled airline.

Hope Heathrow is an option for you.

Strawberry

Have you tried booking your outbound with say thomas cook and then your return with another company who's flights go on seperate days?? just a though

Good luck!!

try flying to Antalya then getting a transfer to where you want to be - Antalya is open all year round, with lots of charter companies

Thanks for that idea Perfume. We had considered Antalya as there seem to be more flights, but we need to fly into Dalaman as we will be collected from there. Don't think they would want to drive to Antalya to collect us which I would guess is a 3 hours+ drive!
Strawberry's routing with Turkish Airlines would seem to suit us best at the moment - leaving Heathrow at 11.40 and arriving into Dalaman at 20.10 (via Istanbul) and then leaving Dalaman at 09.10 and arriving back into Heathrow at 15.10. The cost is £948.

I hadn't thought of using two different airlines as Lukee suggested so will look at that next week. We are off to Las Vegas tomorrow for a adult only break so will sort out the Dalaman flights when we get back.

Thanks for all your suggestions,

Cazz

Just wanted to say thanks to all those who posted. We have now booked to travel from Heathrow to Dalaman for 4 nights on the 20th December returning to Heathrow at 3.30pm on Christmas Eve with both journeys taking around 6.5 hours. Someone is going to have to be very organised with Christmas this year!