Saturday 16 August 2014

How Turkish Airlines Can Ruin Your Vacation


On the afternoon of August 9th, my husband and I were unable to check-in online for our Turkish Airlines Flight TK 716 from Istanbul to Delhi. Our reservation pulled up on the Turkish Airlines website, but it didn't let us pick any seats since all the seats showed "full", which meant we couldn’t check-in online.

This was the fifth flight we were taking in the last 14 days, but this was the first time we were unable to check-in online! Anxious and confused, we arrive at the Istanbul Ataturk Airport (IST) at 4.30 p.m. for our flight to Delhi (DEL) scheduled to depart at 7.55 p.m.

Bumped off the flight, yeah ask me next time please!

4.30 pm: Upon reaching the airport, we encountered a series of failed attempts to check-in again at the kiosks. I asked a couple of Turkish Airlines staff as to why we weren't able to check-in, but got no help and was asked to stand in the queue for check-in.

4.45 pm: We join the queue and then the real drill began! We meet another passenger, Mr. Rakesh Gupta, experiencing the same issue. Sigh! At least we weren't the only ones!

5.45 pm: We get to speak to the Turkish Airlines ground staff to help us check-in. Holding our passports, she speaks to the staff agent right next to her in her local language.

Us: Is there a problem?
TK Agent #1: No check-in! You go to Turkish Night Office.
Us: What do you mean? 
TK Agent #1: Overbook! You no fly today! You go to Turkish Night Office. 

The TK Agent #1 prints "Standby" boarding pass for the both of us, without offering any alternate solution. Confused and shocked, we stood there wondering what the hell just happened!

Meanwhile, we see another TK agent (TK Agent #2) putting Mr. Rakesh Gupta on the Istanbul-Mumbai flight instead of the Istanbul-Delhi flight. Mr. Gupta was told that Air India (code-share/partner airline) will fly him from Mumbai to Delhi. "Oh great! That would be better than being stranded here", we said to ourselves.

TK 720 Istanbul-Mumbai was schedule to fly at 7.35 pm. We had less than 90 minutes to make it! We ask TK Agent #1 to do the same for us. She refused to help and directed us to go stand in another long queue. Ok that doesn't make any sense - If one agent can offer an alternate route, why can't we be offered the same? TK Agent #1 continues to ignore us and helps other passengers. We go to TK Agent #2 who was almost done checking-in Mr. Gupta to the Mumbai flight. We requested her to put us on the same flight to Mumbai.

TK Agent #2's response..
"You are not my Passenger. Go away".

Wow! Really? Did she just say that? Shocked, agitated, frustrated we stood there. What can you really expect after that? Is this the customer service level standard of a leading international airline?

6:35 pm: As I stood in the "Turkish Night Office" queue, my husband pretty much begged the TK agent #2, to help. Finally TK Agent #1 put us on the Istanbul-Mumbai flight.



Success! Begging these incompetent people worked! Finally, we were checked into the Mumbai flight and told to talk to their code-share partner Air India to get us on the Mumbai-Delhi flight departing at 7.50 am the following day.

Running across the airport, we finally board TK 720 flying to Mumbai. Phew! The worst is over, once we get to Mumbai, their code-share airline, Air India will take care of us and put us in AI 348 to Delhi.

5:00 am: We land in Mumbai International Airport, go through Immigration and Customs.

6:30 am: We proceed to Air India's counter to arrange our connecting flight to Delhi, that’s when we realised that our ordeal wasn’t over yet! We are now told that because Turkish Airlines "closed" our ticket, Air India cannot put us on the Mumbai-Delhi flight. So basically, as per Turkish Airlines, they had flown us from Istanbul to our final destination, Delhi. Oh, but wait a minute, what am I doing in Mumbai then? Our only option now was to purchase another ticket to fly from Mumbai to Delhi. We paid INR 23,856 ( $391) to fly to Delhi.

7:20 am: Again, we run across the terminal, and finally board the flight to Delhi.

The $391 flight to original destination!


Turkish Airlines, How do you explain this?
  1. How can you overbook an international flight by 57 passengers?
  2. How can you just bump passengers off a flight?
  3. How can you not offer alternate solutions?
  4. If a passenger requests to be booked on an alternate flight instead of spending another day or two in your city, because you overbooked the flight, how can you refuse the request? 
  5. How can a Turkish Airline passenger not be "Your" passenger?
  6. How can you "close" our ticket from Istanbul to Delhi, when you put us on Istanbul to Mumbai, because YOU overbooked the flight. It was YOUR Problem, that unfortunately only turned out to be MY problem!
  7. Wasn't Turkish Airlines obligated to fly me to my ticketed final destination? Because YOU closed my ticket, Air India refused to offer me the Mumbai-Delhi flight, because as per them, my husband and I flew directly to Delhi, which meant we had to shell out Rs. 23,000 from our pockets, over and above what we’d paid for our tickets already! This has been a nightmare! We were supposed to get to Delhi at 4.20 am, instead we got there at 10.10 am, $391 short, and after a lot of running around and unpleasant experience with the staff agents. I would like to know how Turkish airlines plans to compensate us for this horrific ordeal, for the anxiety and stress we went through because of them? 
"We were on a vacation which turned sour because of Turkish Airlines and their incompetent staff and their callous attitude towards passengers who have bought a full fare ticket. I hope Turkish Airlines realizes that it has plenty of competition and we will never choose to fly with them again, nor will we recommend them to our friends and family"

Never Again, Turkish Airlines, Never Again!

55 comments:

  1. I think you need to add a "visitor count" add-in to this blog to let turkish airlines realize the no. of ppl who've read this. Bigger number, bigger impact.

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    1. That would be a great idea! However, I am new to blogging and not quite sure how to add "Visitor Count". Any suggestions on how to?

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  2. Thats horrible. I think you must share this as much as you can on social media so that this gets to the final people.

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    1. On it! I have been contacting Turkish Airlines on their FB page almost everyday! They keep asking me for my Complaint Number, which I have already provided to them. It's like talking to a wall! Horrible, Horrible Customer Service!

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    1. you will never get that pu$$y

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  4. Guys, my sister just had an awful experience with them. She was flying from Bucharest to Dubai and she had a connexion there. The flight had a delay and she lost her connexion. She and the others passengers that were in the same situation, had to spend the night there because they did not offer them any connexion with others companies. They were rude and they did not offer them anything, not even water. In the morning, my sister and other three passenger manage to take a flight back to Bucharest but they lost their luggages though my sister insist to check carefully that they send it with them. We hope that they will find their luggages. She told me that in Istanbul Airport she met a girl from Brazilia that she was there for 4 days waiting to fly back home. They gave her a stand-by ticket but the flight were full and she was still in waiting. Some folks from Coreea were in the same situation and they were there for 2 days. For your sake, please avoid Turkish Airline as much as you can.

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    Replies
    1. Yes please avoid Turkish Airlines so we don't have to travel with smelling people when we want to visit our country. Go fly with Emirates or Qatar.

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    2. Ok, they aren't going to offer you anything. What are you, the Queen of Englad, since I know U aren't. Stop acting Entitled. The comment above, please you correct grammar, since the only person who is smelling is you. :)
      Literally, Turkish Airlines is just as good as Emirates and Qatar, and they offer very good service and they have a quality experience. Stop acting entitled.

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  5. GIVE ME YOUR SUPERVISOOOR!!!!111

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  6. I will still fly with Turkish Airlines as long as there is no better company.

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  7. It is quite normal that air carriers offer more space than they can carry, The reason for this is that it takes into account of passengers who will not show up.
    The other passengers had probably already checked in so you could not check in because the flight was already full. Thats why you were 'bumped out'of the flight. As far as i read on your blog you only stood in the queue of the Turkish Airlines night office and that your husband begged the check-in crew for a flight to Mumbai. So you didn't told this story to the agent in the night office so I think that you needed to stay in the queue of the Turkish Airlines night office to get a better solution for this problem and a compensation. And I think the ground staff has probably said that you are not currently his passenger and must move away and not that you aren't a passenger of Turkish Airlines.

    As I said earlier it would have been better if you stayed in the queue and asked for a better solution and compensation and that you wouldn't have a problem with your connecting flight.

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  8. I have been flying with Turkish Airlines, Lufthansa, Air france and KLM since 27 years. There were no problems with those companies. I think you were just unlucky on that date. So, we can have same problems with others but it does not mean that Turkish Airlines or other companies are bad.

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  9. Turkish airlines is the best in Europe. No competition. People who flied with British airways, they got bed bug bites and old aircrafts. So sometimes bad luck happens. Turkish Airlines is aleays better than others...

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    1. Working for an airline myself, I agree that that this is quite exaggerated, possibly in the heat of the moment. If you have extraordinary and unexpected issues with an airline, write to them, claim compensation, get angry at the company. DO NOT persuade people against using them (when they are known for a great service). Also, don't use social media to air your bad experience and don't write other passengers names on your post. There is a more sensitive and sensible way of dealing with this type of problem.

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  10. Hello Everybody,
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  11. I recommend the Turkish airlines --- lol voes are stupid the Turkish does not have good internet. The girl who wrote has already traveled with you - in Turkish; Hout you're only lying because on the plane the internet crashed I remember Fuck you

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  12. turkish airlines is very good airlines shut up

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  13. Turkish airlines is the best airlines I hav travelled till now and the staff is also really good and friendly according to me all the comments against Turkish airlines must be fake because i will always support them

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  14. Turkish airlines is the best airlines I hav travelled till now and the staff is also really good and friendly according to me all the comments against Turkish airlines must be fake because i will always support them

    ReplyDelete
  15. Turkish airlines is the best airlines I hav travelled till now and the staff is also really good and friendly according to me all the comments against Turkish airlines must be fake because i will always support them

    ReplyDelete
  16. Turkish airlines is the best airlines I hav travelled till now and the staff is also really good and friendly according to me all the comments against Turkish airlines must be fake because i will always support them

    ReplyDelete
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  18. I will admit Turkish airlines did bad but non of it would have happended if you jest checked in earlier. BTW to is AWSOME

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  19. orospu cocuklari firmayi batimak istiyorlar

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  20. fake againist ,the best airlines is TURKISH AIRLINES

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  21. The Best Airlines is Turkish Airlines... i was try many times

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  22. Stop wasting your and others precious time by writing shit like this. Me and family always travelling on Turkish airlines. Maybe you are just trying to get a refund ad free tickets. Timeline you created sounds like you had a pen and paper and you were writing down the events that took place. Get a life

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  23. they just want to make the Turkish airline look bad in this way. So pathetic!

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  24. This website probably created by a rival company in order to discredit another airline the whole story is a stinking lie dont belive it guys.

    Note: If the blogger is honest then he/she dont delete this website.

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  25. some turks are defending their airline here, but why would somebody lie if he have good experiance. there must be some bad behaviour happened to these customers. i also had worst turkish airline experiance.

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  26. I have taken a Turkish Airlines flight from Kayseri (Turkey) to Istanbul in March 2017. When the plane was about to take off, a huge noise came from one of the engines. Despite of that, the airplane continued moving towards the runway; I immediately asked one of the crew to advise the capitan. After 10 minutes the capitan told that a technical problem was being faced and we stayed other 40 minutes onboard without any further notice. A fireman car escorted the airplane until the parking area and we received no feedback on what happened. We were only able to depart again 5 hours after the incident... I question if Turkish Airlines planes are really being maintened properly and the crew's ability to deal with emergencies.

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  27. When I got back to my country, I went to the court and asked for material and moral compensation, as Turkish caused me various issues because of their "operational issues". And I received back much por than the airline ticket value. I strongly recommend travellers to take pictures of airport screens and/or record conversations with the airline staff; register formal claims while at the airport, etc, so there will be enough evidence to take the airline to the court to ask for compensation.

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  28. junge halts maul wer sagt dir das du mit dem fliegen sollst opfaaa

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  30. Sometimes bad things happens. I'm flying with Turkish Airlines almost weekly and never had problems. So i wouldnt start with a title like: Never Again! Been to mumbai last year and the taxi driver ripped me off very badly - but i would never ever blame whole mumbai because of one taxi driver. So you had a bad trip and thats it. Nothing more and nothing less.

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  31. Lol wait this is so fake. This is your fault for not booking. Please stop distorting everything that probably happened. You aren't entitled to create a hate turkish airlines website. Lol. Like literally ALL frickin airlines overbook. IT DOESN'T MATTER WHO UR! YOU AREN'T THE ONLY ONE WHO MATTERS. Why do people like you always find a way to victimize yourself. Please get something to do with your life. I'm sorry for writing this but its true, Please stop. Every airline overbooks and you were too late to the check in I guess, and things happen. You probably didn't even ask people thoroughly, since of all airlines, Turksih airlines would gladly do it. Literally all airlines are supposed to book you on another flight if one is full! Maybe the Mumbai one is full. Stop trying to get attentions, and get a life! :)

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  32. Turkish airlines is the worst airlines in the world their staff are very rude very rude they dined us boarding and started asking for OK TO BORD when we are going to a visa free country don't use this airlines

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