Update: Turkish Airlines & CS Travel got in touch with me quite soon after my post. Some details in the original post have been included/removed/edited to reflect information passed on to me by them, as well as removing parts that are still “under investigations”. None of these changes have been approved even though I’ve been waiting for 2 weeks, so expect more changes when I get an update for the update.. when I have time. Am dying here, worked has bottle-necked so much its not even funny anymore. New post incoming.
Note: I started writing the first half of this post in Istanbul. I’ve published it now that I’m back in Singapore. And this is a very long post filled with angst and probably more vulgarity than one would care for. Not much about the trip in here as this is purely a complain post. Scroll all the way to the bottom for a point form summary.
Dear everybody,
A very happy 2016 to all of you! I hope the year has been treating you well so far. Unfortunately, 2016 has been nothing less than a cornucopia of exhaustion, worry and frustration for myself, my family and all 21 tour mates on my winter vacation.
For those of you who don’t love me enough to frequently see my content on your Facebook feed or follow my blog posts, I’ve been in Eastern Europe on a tour package with CS Travel since 17 December 2015. The first fortnight was rather enjoyable; our Singaporean guide Alex Fong made sure we visited, ate and experienced the necessary. He even squeezed in several unplanned stops at our adhoc requests – Allianz Arena, Wattens, a weird ass road side stop in the middle of nowhere to look at some crazy fuckers surfing in negative degree weather in a longkang. But from the start, Uncle Murphy came along for the ride.
My mother’s luggage with her winter wear was rerouted to God knows where by the ground crew in Istanbul and didn’t arrive with us in Prague. There’s a happy ending in here (but it’s the only one) – her luggage was delivered to our hotel some 8 hours later so she’s been able to keep warm during our sightseeing. I’ve been keeping extremely warm too. The ground crew also managed to completely break off the top handle of my Samsonite and I’ve been waddling around with a case that looks like it had too much vodka and refuses to go straight ever since. What a workout for my arms and back. My little brother also got his bag stolen from one of the hotels. Super painful cos some valuable belongings like a camera, laptop, some of my luxury shopping that I carted around like my precious was in there. Cover ass first – it wasn’t neglect. All our bags were waiting to load onto our bus so they were in the hotel lobby near the concierge. I haven’t claimed insurance yet, but I will attempt to.
And now we get to the crux of my long and going to get even longer rant: I am currently writing this with my ass planted on a very cold and very dirty tiled floor right here in Istanbul Airport.
Though Istanbul is a beautiful city, it was never on my visit list. We had booked a 15 day tour with CS Travel in August with the promise of flight by Emirates and a free 2 day Dubai stay. Dubai was what made us sign up with them in the first place. More than a month later, one of the super nice guys we booked through called to say that they couldn’t secure any Emirates seats, so we had to fly by Turkish Airlines and one day before our initially scheduled flight. Daddy was not happy… I had promised to bring him to Cut for his birthday but now he would be spending his 67th on a plane. (But actually that helped me save money.. to fund my shopping hahaha.) We ended up confirming 2 days later but didn’t get any response so Mrs Kiasu Mother visited the agency after waiting for 3 days for a confirmation on our confirmation.
Less than a week before the briefing, we finally squeezed out a confirmation that Emirates had no more available seats so we either cancelled our first family vacation in a decade, or top up the difference and fly TK via Istanbul on 17 December instead. We were assured by CS Travel that TK is a 5-star reputable carrier even though our booking form states Emirates. Having heard assurances from what we thought were experts in their industries and pretty much not having time to change all our plans or stop our purchases of $300+ worth of winter clothes, we gave the green light to fly by TK. A notable mention here: we were also repeatedly told quite early on that our group was confirmed ready to go. After chatting with my tour mates, it became obvious that some of them only booked a month before departure. My mom, who is well versed in travel bookings, reckons that the Emirates tickets were not paid up thus were released so CS Travel had to fly us by TK.
I think I’m more used to Asia’s service standards where a single complain could cost a person’s job so most service crew are all forced smiles and false cheer. Can’t say the same about the rest of the world though.
Trouble first arrived on 31st December, the day of our departure. We were booked to leave Munich to Singapore via Istanbul at Flughafen München, the international airport of Munich, capital of Bavaria. Most of us already knew that Ataturk Airport had cancelled all flights due to a snowstorm so we were mentally prepared to spend the night at the airport hoping for a flight out. Of course nobody wanted to. It was New Year’s Eve for God’s sake. There was nothing around the airport, nor were any shops or eateries open.
The queue at TK’s counter at the airport rivaled a free Hello Kitty giveaway. There were hordes of angry customers that weren’t part of our group demanding explanations from very unresponsive staff. Accountability seemed to have been on holiday somewhere far away from us.
While I understand that there are certain protocols to follow when there are cancelled/delayed flights, I don’t think its any excuse for rudeness or neglect. It got to the point where counter staff ran away when they saw one of my tour mates (let’s call him Dr. O) approach to ask questions. Its not that any of us were deliberately hounding them, we weren’t getting any updates unless we queued for hours to ask.
Alex ran around like a headless chicken trying to help us but got false information from all over the place. He went to the information counter which literally told him they had no information and to call the embassy instead… and the embassy was closed. So there we were, all doomed to spend NYE in an airport but where there is me, there is fun. The place was empty as fuck so we had great time doing stupid things and taking dumb pictures while waiting for confirmation that our delayed flight was in reality a cancelled one.
We played trolley races (yes, I fell down), sat on all the kiddie rides, poked at game stations and generally treated the airport like our private palace. Wifi was good too, so I did quite a bit of Youtubing and catching up on Running Man. We did sleep over on hard chairs or various surfaces one had to be fast enough to claim but since it was all our first times, it was a novel experience and rather interesting.
The next day, 1st January, we were handed €10 meal vouchers per person as airline compensation for cancelled flight. Surprisingly, nobody complained about being uncomfortable sleeping in an obviously not-bed surface but all of us didn’t like the noisy atmosphere during our rest. Again, we had to wait to know if we could get to Istanbul for our connecting flight.
I chose tori karaage ramen with my allotment! Not that I Asian always want to eat Asian food but there were really limited choices since it was a public holiday, and most places were pricey. This ramen alone cost €15* and my bottled water was €3.40. Not bad tasting but definitely not ramen noodles. The soup felt nice in my tummy on a cold day too.
* €15 is approx SGD 24. For easier calculations just take the exchange rate as 1.5 then add a bit more cos I will be putting prices in Euro from here on.
Then we got something clarified to us.
€10 was meant for a day’s worth of meals. So… buying 1 litre of much needed water which doesn’t even come close to a daily 8 litre would mean that I could choose to starve or dehydrate. Okay fine, TK doesn’t have to give accommodation because “act of God” but €10 for one day……? Maybe I could have gone somewhere cheaper (and I did the next day) but the compensation value did flummox most of us. After much queuing and further non-responsiveness and some forceful prodding from Alex, we were told that no flights would be available BUT if they were we had to be on standby or lose the seats, and that the best solution would be to check in to a hotel.
So we had to spring close to €250 to check in to Hilton Munich Airport.
Cool signage I found at the lobby, they name their conference rooms after countries!
The next day, we had confirmed seats on TK to Istanbul so all of us bleary eyed pandas crawled our way to the airport for a 7.20am flight.
Yet again we met with disinterested counter staff who decided to take the easy way out and group check in half of us when they realised how many luggages our tour had. 15 pieces were checked in together with no identifiers to which piece belonged to which pax. This proved to be a big problem later.
Weirdly, we weren’t issued our boarding passes for Istanbul to Singapore but TK told us that those could be picked up at the airport when we arrived. They are all under Star Alliance so we wondered why they didn’t issue any code share passes. A few of us were worried because we knew from the news that Istanbul was still clearing backlog passengers from Wednesday (we flew on Saturday) and that we wouldn’t get to go home. Plus, news of a blizzard approaching meant that we could potentially be stranded much longer in Munich.
Boy, were we prophetic or what.
Istanbul Ataturk Airport: Much snow. No Yeti.
Hello Istanbul! As previously mentioned, the service crew onboard were no different from our SIN – PRG flight. Sullen faces all around, ignoring of pax when it was clear they saw us calling them but something happened that took the cake, digested it and spat it out.
Dr. O had some soup/coffee (I forgot which) spilled on him by an FSS. Mind you he was a business class passenger and this accident happened when there was no turbulence. Supposedly the FSS somehow dipped his entire finger into the soup/coffee, got burned and upturned the bowl/cup when startled. There was no acknowledgement of the spill before he turned away. Dr. O of course asked for an apology but was rewarded with this gem of a phrase instead:
“What can I do?”
He meant that he could do nothing incase you interpreted that as assistance. Bugger also added on that he’s also injured and in pain as well. Dr. O was left speechless but fortunately, he was wearing thick jeans so he wasn’t hurt much. Whoever that was, you have a mighty long feedback letter coming in.
And yup, of course our boarding passes for IST – SIN never materialised. Both Alex and I had checked through our own means in SQ to confirm that we would be able to fly. Apparently TK booked the seats but didn’t confirm them so SQ put their own paying customers as priority. Things were beginning to look terrible.
The transfer area in Ataturk Airport looked like what I imagined a luxury building in a 3rd world country would look like. Trash everywhere, sporadic splotches of various liquids, food/dirt smears all over the floor and countless passengers sitting or lying around. Little did I know that I was soon to become one of them.
As a whole, we staked out an area to rest while once again waiting for somebody, anybody to give us answers that Alex was trying his best to get. I have to give that man props, he stayed calm, polite and patient no matter how much bull or disrespect was thrown in his face.
We had 2 hours transit and the queues to collect tickets or ask questions easily surpassed the 2 hours mark. Nobody was willing to help so the only avenue was the TK counter where all staff studiously avoided us and pretended not to hear us. Or maybe we had become invisible. Time ticked down and it was getting dangerously near to missing the flight so everyone was in mild panic. A plea for help after countless questioning attempts and being treated like a stray dog got us only this –
We spent hour after hour approaching anyone we could to the same avail. The nicer ones would tell us that they’ve clocked out and redirect us to yet another location for answers. Some very smart dude also told us how “fortunate” we were that we weren’t getting charged $400 to rebook tickets. He insinuated that he was doing us a “favor” for free. It was exhausting and frustrating to keep our cool in the face of all these rejections.
The transit area at this godforsaken airport had nothing. By nothing, I mean they had no places to buy food or drinks. And I easily spent 5 hours with no food, no water, no money, no credit cards, no ciggies and no luggage because TK forced us to check in all our luggage as a group and now they have no idea whose is whose and it would be too much of a hassle to pull them out. We huddled together for warmth in a place that was snowing since everybody thought we could go home and had packed our winter wear in our inaccessible check ins.
More likely they didn’t know where our luggages were. We spent a lot of time looking out the window there were wagons full of bags in strange places parked haphazardly like they were nuisances. We saw lots of ground staff checking bag after bag for some type of identification so they would know where to send them to. I personally saw at least 6 wagons get checked and repeatedly being pushed further and further away.
Alex knew there would be no chance of getting any meal voucher compensation or accommodation from TK so one of his top priorities was getting water/food for us. There were a good number of senior citizens in our group who were suffering effects of stress and exhaustion from sleeping in Munich Airport, and now they had to deal with dehydration and hunger. My father himself who is pushing 70 gradually grew quieter and quieter, a far cry from his usual robust self. If you’ve been a victim of my hyperactiveness, he’s exactly the same. You’ll know I was falling sick if I started being lackluster.
We were really trapped in transit. My brother and I covered every single inch of the area looking for a way out to go buy everybody some food and drinks but other than illegally sneaking out, there was totally no avenue. We didn’t want to take the risk because we didn’t know how/if could we come back in after. Plus we didn’t speak their language and miming could only go so far. I seriously was scared of being deported somewhere far away from the rest of the group and getting sold off.
Crestfallen, we returned to our stake out site as bearers of bad news. Some of my tour mates were desperate enough to start drinking from the tap but I had forbidden my family from doing so unless that was the only liquid we could get our hands on. Alex found an airport staff to help with getting us something to eat or drink. This man came back with complimentary sandwiches & cans of soft drinks that were supposed to be handed out in times of delay. He asked for money in exchange for this favour. I’m not sure how much was paid up but many of us saw Alex pay him in Euro.
Meanwhile, my more daring parents found a way to slip past immigration and gained access to the actual airport with shops and all. Accordingly, they had several close shaves where security asked for boarding passes (which none of us had) but they escaped by running off. No chase was given. Mom & dad returned with 4 drinks and a 20 piece chicken tenders box complete with fries from Popeyes. We didn’t have any Turkish Lira but Euro was accepted so they used Euro to pay. They paid €24 (or close to SGD 40) for that simple meal. I had wondered why they didn’t get more sustenance to share with our group but €24 was not something we could afford when our money was running out and bribes were needed to pay our way.
Some 2 hours after that, TK & the airport started handing out food and drinks to all stranded passengers. There were easily hundreds of people just like us sitting or lying around waiting for incompetent staff to give us answers. Everybody in our group joked about how we had turned into refugees. The bread was hard and dry and the only thing we had to drink was Coke or Fanta. And we were still sitting on cold and extremely dirty floors. Alex was still somewhere getting treated like a dog as he asked for flights for us. He was redirected from counter to counter with no end in sight.
Somewhere along the way, my dad made a visit to the washroom but had chosen to use the less unhygienic handicap toilet instead. The general washrooms had so much pee on the floor that a dwarf hamster could have happily taken a swim in. Both male and female lavatories were in the same condition. 3 airport staff pounded on his door demanding that he come out immediately but one does not stop the call of mother nature just like that. When he exited, they started shouting in a very menacing manner. I could see the scenario from where I sat so I pulled my brother along with me and we ran over. It seemed we weren’t supposed to use the handicap toilet even though there were no signs saying so. My dad was pretending to not understand what they were saying and we all saw the 3 men rub their fingers together in the international hand sign for money. They wanted to be paid before letting dad out of the toilet.
We saw a chance and ran. They didn’t chase so all was good. But later that night when I was on voluntary watch duty (there were many people who kept coming sneakily up to all our hand carries), I had to pee too. That was the first pee of the day. I hadn’t drank enough water to need to go. I poked one of my sleeping tour mates to cover me for awhile and ran off to the toilet.
Having done my business, I opened my cubicle door only to see one of the 3 men from before standing at the only exit. He wore a cleaner uniform so I thought he was doing his job. I went about washing my hands, splashing a little water on my face and turned to leave. He was still there blocking my only way out, one hand doing the money sign and the other hand fondling his crotch.
I felt my blood turn cold. Fucker wanted intimacies or money before I could leave. I was so scared and I didn’t know what to do. I had no money on me and no way was I touching him. I was close to surrendering my diamond ring as bribe when another man from the afternoon’s toilet adventure approached. Mr Cleaner turned just for that split second to talk to his partner in crime and I put all my hurdling training to good use. I bowling balled past the two of them and ran for my life. I escaped; they didn’t chase. I started telling the girls to be careful and we agreed that we should keep toilet breaks to a minimum and go in a flock if needed. That night, we were thankful that we had nothing to drink so we didn’t have to go pee.
These are three of the oldest tour members in my group. Everyone had to sleep with their valuables clutched tightly in their hands or stay awake like we did. The floor was so cold that even the younger folks started complaining. The was a TK lounge with chairs and bedding in there that we could have made use but it was “fully booked”. We were also told that we could ask for small pillows and blankets from the same place so we went to get some but were told they have “none left” by the receptionist who was standing directly infront of bags and bags of brand new bedding.
A few hours later, the airport finally deigned to release some pillows to us. By release, I mean a pile of pillows just thrown in the middle of nowhere that we had to walk a good distance away to pick up. And they were saturated with urine. Other stranded passengers alongside us started grabbing them. We managed to get a few, but some were lost during the night as they were sneakily stolen or given away to people who needed them more than we did.
And finally, we were issued temporary boarding passes to go into the area where my parents had slipped into earlier that day.
Leaving to go to the main airport meant that we had to go through a very long queue to get our belongings scanned and ourselves patted down, up a flight of stairs and what felt like a route march from one end of the airport to the other just to get weak and sporadic Wifi. Each trip there would take us a good 20 minutes but we didn’t have a choice. All our friends and family in Singapore were worried sick about us and we had to give them updates somehow.
Remember the baguette from earlier on in this post? My mom had secreted one in her bag just incase we got locked up again and when we were passing though security, one of the officers stopped her, took the bread out and starting investigating it. HELLO, IT CAME FROM YOU GUYS. I didn’t like the pat down too. It was a lot more invasive than I was used to. I swear the tip of the female officer’s finger went inside me a few times.
Tempers were at an all time high and poor Alex got shouted at a few times because while CS Travel was following protocol, not enough was done to make the elderly in our group more comfortable. Imagine, there was a 75 year old diabetic uncle whose sugar level was climbing into the 7s & approaching 8, Dr. O had some health problems that I didn’t deem polite to ask about but I could see he was in pain, my own father was having a lot of problems walking because he has had both kneecaps reconstructed and he could literally feel the steel bars in them freezing cold.
Then the impasse happened.
We were told that only 20 seats would be available on SQ the following day. We had 26 pax in our group, including Alex. I was expecting chaos and quarrels over who would get to leave but everybody was very calm and reasonable when it came to allocating family members who could leave first. We all agreed to let half of each family fly home to Singapore.
Harsh words were thrown at Alex and demands were made to CS Travel to find a bloody hotel to stay in for those remaining behind. No accommodation was provided from the beginning because it wasn’t guaranteed that we could pass immigration and return into the airport if we exited. The atmosphere was very toxic and my tour mates all felt that our travel agency wasn’t doing enough to help when we were the ones who got coerced into changing our Emirates flight to TK.
It was a very painful decision that my brother and I still feel guilty about this but we were the ones who came back first. We were the only Singaporeans left there and our embassy was not able to help us at all. We knowingly left our aged parents back in Istanbul with no fresh clothes, no luggage, no confirmation of any flights out or accommodation.
You see, TK promised us that our luggage was in the airport, and would be on the same SQ flight as us. There was no way my parents – who has a combined age of over a century – would be able to handle 150kg of luggage by themselves when they arrived in Changi Airport.
In the end, only 15 of us were able to successfully board the flight home so here I am in Singapore finishing up this post. Last I’ve heard, my parents and the rest of my tour mates enjoyed an all expense paid stay in a 5 star hotel, fine dining and even Turkish baths to boot. Alex told me earlier today that all of them are more than willing to stay on for several more days. A free city tour has also been planned for them tomorrow if they can’t get on any flights too. My parents have been too busy having fun the whole of today to even talk to us -_-”
The story doesn’t end here. There was no luggage at all when I touched down today. According to the staff at Changi Airport, the luggage tags that we were holding on to doesn’t even exist in Istanbul. We abandoned our parents for nothing. We had just spent 9 very happy hours on an SQ flight with beautiful FSS, comfortable seats, delicious food and bingeing on cocktails to have our world crashing down on us again. Suddenly, we could feel every germ particle on our 48 hour old clothes once more. But then we were now on local soil. There were plenty of airport staff willing to go the extra mile to help us sort out this issue. We lodged reports for lost luggage and were told that they would be delivered to our homes if/when they arrived. There was nothing more we could do but go home and pray.
The last communication I had with my mother was that they had problems checking in at Istanbul Airport for their SQ flight home to Singapore. They were also told that our luggage would not be able to fly with them. I haven’t had any new updates in the last 6 hours and everybody is uncontactable so all I can do it pray that my parents and the remaining tour mates are right now flying home to us in comfort.
Lastly, I want to say how humbled and awed I am by the amount of support that I have received over the last 96 hours. It was uncomfortable wearing the same socks and underwear (mostly men in the group complaining about wearing dirty underwear) while waiting aimlessly for promises to be broken but something kept me going. So many of you sent me messages via different channels offering addresses of your friends in Istanbul, support hotlines, transfers of money to my bank account and even purchases of air tickets to fly me home. I could have flown my entire tour group home for free had I taken up all those kind offers. (I now know which of my friends are filthy rich!) None of us in the tour group chose to break away and rebook our own tickets for it would mean giving up our insurance claims. Given that our checked in bags were still AWOL, nobody dared to take the risk because Europe equals luxury items shopping. I personally have about $3000 worth of leather goods in my lost luggage.
I wrote this very long post as a chronicle of my once in a lifetime (I hope!) adventure and what to expect/do if one is ever stranded at Ataturk Airport. When I have said here is nowhere close to the despair we felt, nor is it the full story. The next step after getting all our loved ones and belongings back would be to seek compensation from our travel agency but they seem to have woken up and actually called me awhile ago to assure me that compensation will be discussed.
The nightmare is still not over as all of our insurance policies expired on 1st January when we were supposed to return so we have to see if it can be extended as there was no way for us to call AIG while stuck in Istanbul. We also have to wait and see if our left behind comrades appear in Singapore tomorrow, together with our bags.
For TL;DR:
- Delayed luggage upon arrival with winter clothes inside, damaged Samsonite case and 15 pieces of lost luggage thanks to Turkish Airlines (TK).
- Spent hour after hour running around like headless chickens begging someone to get us new flights out of Istanbul.
- Stranded at Munich & Istanbul Airport for more than 48 hours. Elderly and young children had to sleep on cold hard floors in winter with no access to food, water, or our own luggages as we were forced to check them in by TK.
- Kept getting bumped off flights or mistakenly put onto overbooked planes and Singapore embassy unable to help us.
- Learned that greasing palms is rampant overseas.
- Forced to abandon our parents in Istanbul with no personal belongings as TK promised to send luggages to Singapore with only 15 of our 26 member tour group.
- No sign of any luggage when we touched down.
- Moral of the story: Fly during winter + peak periods at your own risk, and insurance is your best friend.
*
Update: My parents and rest of the tour group have arrived in Singapore as of this morning. Not surprisingly, our luggage didn’t appear.
I’ve been told there were issues when they were trying to board but fortunately, there was an Istanbul-based Singaporean at the SQ counter today who went beyond his duties when he discovered that my left behind group was having trouble. He manually keyed in every single one of the 11 pax’s details to book their seats, personally escorted them to the plane, and found out where our luggages were. He refused to put them on the first available flight which was TK, and promised to send them out to us by SQ tomorrow. He left his contact number with my tour guide and told him to inform him anytime we would need any help for the luggages. Thank you Mr Lim, and Singapore Airlines should be proud to have you onboard with them.
Ramblings of a Girl in the City 
Sorry to hear your harrowing experiences. I hope you will be smarter after this incident with regards travelling to Europe. There are many famous international airports beside Ataturk that are equally bad. Tour agencies will always give you the cheapest and worst option while profiting from there. Be smart and plan your own holidays and book your own flights in future!
Am taking your reply and rubbing it in my parents faces. My brother and I wanted free & easy! But to be honest, I would be lost if I had to deal with the airport shutdown all by my self so I guess there’s pros and cons?
Sorry for being frank, definitely not the intention to rub it in.
There are actually not much cons for free and easy except self planing and arranging for transport.
My advice and suggestions to you for future trips:
1. fly direct with better carrier (SIA, Air France, Lufthansa etc.) rather than stop over. Even Middle Eastern carriers are not advisable as delays are frequent in Dubai and Doha. (to ensure your checked in luggage remain with you as much as possible)
2. choose better airports to fly in and out of Europe eg. London Heathrow, Paris CDG, Amsterdam Schiphol, Frankfurt
3. ability to choose clean safe hotels chains like NH, AC, Accor, ibis, best western
4. to honest, if flights are grounded due to extreme weather, your chances of getting cleared should be higher (smaller group). It will even be better if the airlines you are travelling in operate the A380 between Europe and Singapore.
I was at Ataturk Airport last year to transfer from a Qatar Airways flight to a Turkish Airlines flight on my way to Israel. At the transfer lounge, the Turkish Airlines staff issued me with a boarding pass. I asked if I should go through immigration and go to collect my luggage to re-check in my luggage. Given my years of travelling, I know that this was necessary because I am transferring to a flight on a different carrier. The Turkish staff told me that he had arranged for my luggage to be transferred to the Turkish Airlines flight, and I need not go through immigration. I was pleasantly surprised at this ‘good service’. I went through security and went to spend a few hours in the lounge, and I felt that something was wrong. I then decided to clear immigration and get my luggage. I knew that this will be a challenge because I need to explain to security why I am leaving the departure lounge. I walked up to the security and said that I am going out. The armed Turkish police literally looked away as I walked in the tight space between the x-ray scanner and metal detector. He couldn’t care about anyone going pass him. I cleared immigration, and my sixth sense was right! The Qatar airways staff was there with my luggage and was desperately trying to call me. On the same day, I experienced super-useless Turkish Airlines staff and Turkish Police. Now we all know why Turkey is in this state.
I think those of us staying in Asia are used to a certain standard of service that is definitely not emulated in western countries. Most days, I’m just glad that I live in relatively safe Singapore.
I can’t imagine the fear you felt when that guy blocked the exit to the washroom. That is just so messed up. I’m so happy that you managed to escape.
Thank you for your concern!
I’m sorry you had such a bad experience in Istanbul, when 300 flights are cancelled, chaos always reigns and I agree with you that THY staff need training in smiling and treating the customer with respect. However, as a balance, I would like to say that I have travelled to and from Turkey for 35 years on a regular basis and have never experienced anything like what you went through. I was also travelling through Istanbul in the snow last week and despite the delay, I have no complaints. I would be interested to hear Turkish airlines reply to your complaint.
Methinks its a place of wrong place wrong time. I have not much issue with the flight crew other than the smiling bits but the crew crew’s attitudes really leave much to be desired.
One cannot expect to be treated nice if one likes to use the word ‘fuck’.
Wholeheartedly agreed. Thus my request for Alex to keep me out of all confrontational altercations and the caution before reading this post.
Easy for you to say that when you are not the one going through the ordeal, Max. I’m sure she did not go round scolding innocent people “fuck” and expect to be treated nicely in return, duh.
If one is treated well, one would not need to use the word ‘fuck’.
Disagree. I tend to overuse the word “fuck”. I find it an excellent noun/verb/adjective for all sorts of situations. This word is no longer even a vulgarity to me. But thanks for the defense!
Hi, Nicely written! I was on the same flight, 1 day later (leaving MUC on 1/1) but the same mess, arriving in SIN 30 hours dalayed. I find your evaluation of TK well written and would recommend you to make this review on skytrax.com this if the formal rating platform where TK claims to be a 4* airline but I agree that 3* would better refflect thier quality. In-flight quite good but really terrible when it comes to their ground staff, rudeness and lack of ability to simply apologise (sometimes saying sorry can be very simple but important).
I fully understand that an airline cannot influence extreme weather but an airline should be better prepared to unforseen situation and train staff in being polite & friendly. Lastly I have to admit … you are spoiled in Singapore 🙂 …. In other parts of the world (like Europe) service is simply not as good as in Singapore. A European living in Singapore
I hope you have travel insurance! And yes, us Singaporeans/Asians are pampered by our very different service standards. I guess our complaining works lol.
Some of the tourmates who returned a day after myself got news that TK/Airport (not sure which one) already knew of these delay issues in 2014 but chose to wait for things to happen to come out with an action plan.
Erm. I flew in to changi airport on 4 Jan and saw a ton of luggage flew in by TK that was left unattended at belt 20. I was curious and took a peek at the luggage tag. The flight date was 2nd Jan and the owners were supposed to have arrived in Singapore on 3rd Jan. I hope ur parents and luggage have arrived safe in Singapore now.
Hello! I’ve just had information and visual proof that my luggage is in Changi^^ Now just to hope that nothing is damaged. According to the staff at Changi, TK always has delayed luggages.
Dear blogger, writer, adventurer, misadventure, Singaporer,
That’s not how you use the word “impasse”.
With regards,
Reader.
Heehee pang chance lah. Wrote it when I was delirious and didn’t proof or edit yet.
That is absolutely horrific . My sympathies to your group for that total incompetence . I have just come from Ataturk Airport after a total f*ck up by TK.
I had some serious fun and games with them yesterday. When I checked in at Gatwick , I was told that my flight from Istanbul to Antalya had been cancelled (scheduled to leave at 1.40am) because of the snow – even though It hadn’t snowed for three days and when I arrived in Istanbul not a bit of the white stuff anywhere. I was informed that I was now on the 8.45am flight . This meant spending ten hours in Ataturk Airport and resigned myself to sleep there the night !!
However, on arrival at Istanbul, Called Yasemin who had checked it and the flight now wasn’t cancelled at all ! So , I go to the Customer info desk and got into a go here, move there, go over there again scenario but eventually got put back on the 1.40am flight ! !
My last words were ” Is my luggage definitely going to be on the flight with me and not the 8.45 flight ” of course I got the ” Yes Sir, definitely it has all been changed”
Result me walking around Antalya airport at 3.30am this morning trying to find someone to deal with my lost case !!
I used to like Turkish airlines and actually once you are on board don’t think the flights are that bad but boy they certainly let themselves down with some incompetent staff working for them !!
My ordeal is zilch when compared to yours . I hope you and all of you get full compensation ..f*cking hell they should you 50% stake in TK after going through all that !!
50% stake? I wish. If I do, I’ll give you 0.00001% for your suffering too. Sorry the share can’t be higher, must budget cos Singaporeans love free things so I expect an influx of similarly suffering stories to come.
UPDATE: My luggage has just arrived a day after it should have done. I should state that those nice people at TK decided that it would be easier to post it through my letter box, so have smashed it to smithereens !
For real!?
Hey was it this Mr Lim?
Yup. According to an update from TK (who got in touch pretty quickly to reassure me that they’re investigating), Mr Lim was dispatched by TK’s station manager in Singapore to help out.
Why did you and your brother go back first instead of your parents? Anyway, my TK flight was also cancelled due to the storm and it was hell trying to get replacement flights. I totally empathise.
This part!
Next time, pair one young (or able) with one old. I am sure the luggage can easily be settled by with the help of considerably more helpful people here at Changi Airport and/or asking friends or relatives to help out by meeting you at the airport. Safety of personnel should be of utmost importance before personal belongings. Leaving two old behind at a situation like this is way too risky.
I trusted guide Alex with my and our parents lives. He’s become a good friend 🙂 But yes, on hindsight there were so many other ways we could have handled the situation. Parents were delighted at the extended vacay though. They haven’t stopped rubbing it in our faces.
You made me want to abandon my flight now as I am booked with them this month back to Singapore on transit. I am keeping my fingers crossed really, can’t believe they put you guys up with such treatment, you need to write to Dailymail in UK or Business Traveller to notify their management.
Depends on where you going bah. My friends who fly TK to other locations don’t have much to complain about.
Hi I have cancelled my tours and forfeited by deposit with CS Travel after reading your post. Thanks for the heads up.
We were stranded in Italy many years ago.Dued to the air craft had technical fault. All our luggage already checked in the plane. We only carry our handbag. Waiting from 11 am till midnight no flight very hungry ,tired and sleepy. Aircraft company arranged few buses to ferry all stranded passengers to a very ( deserted rundown ) hotel to stay 1 night . The distance was very far from airport. We were given food ( can eat but not choosy) laid on tables in the so called restaurant. Every one rushing for food. Early next morning bus ferry us back to airport to board the next available flight.home . We wore the same attire as the previous day. This is a good experience for us for flight delay.
Oh dear, it’s so unfortunate you had to go through such an ordeal! I was lucky enough to have a pleasant trip to Turkey with all the staffs and locals being really sweet and helpful. The only bad thing my mum and I encountered were the long queues just to enter the departure airport and the queue to board the Havas was disorganised.
I do agree to a certain extent though, that there’s a potential of getting harassed in Turkey. The locals are pretty nonchalant about approaching you and trying to touch you any chance they get even if it’s just your hands. I didn’t encounter any violating incidences thank god but travellers need to take note of this and just never be alone when in Turkey.
Anyways I guess a lot of the issue with your experience stems from it being the winter season and probably even CS Travel for missing out on those Emirates bookings. I personally wouldn’t rule out ever flying with TK in the future but of course will still prefer Emirates or even Qatar over it any day. Hopefully they manage to sort out your luggage issue some time soon. Here’s wishing you a great year ahead and to never come across anymore bad travelling experiences((:
Hi Chrystal,
Your entry caught my attention on Facebook and I thought I need to clarify few points for you.
To start with, Istanbul is not a country but a city, which is a typo I’m quite sure. Secondly, whatever has happened in Munich is not because of TK staff, it is because Munich Airport staff. Airport staffs are not employed by airlines but they are employed by ground services. This is the common rule back in here Europe, I don’t know about Singapore. Things that has happened in Ataturk airport for your transit, I’m sorry to hear those but I’m quite sure you appreciate the fact that, when there are cancellations because of weather or natural causes, the airlines has the clear back log, starting with the first ever passenger whose flight is cancelled. I was in in Istanbul during that time, and yes it was a heavy snow and we knew they’d cancel lots of flights. In fact, while I was waiting in Heathrow for my flight to Istanbul on the eve of 29th Dec, careful this is 24 hrs before the snow storm has started, they were announcing in Heathrow that passengers flying with TK via Istanbul in the next 24 hrs should expect delays or cancellations. So it was well known. Yes Ataturk airport doesn’t operate very well but it is the most crowded and smallest airport in Europe which serves to a flag carrier. They operate about 1000 flights per day in that tiny airport, God knows how. About sexual harassment, what I can say, some of the Turks watch too much Animal Planet (!).
As a frequent flyer, who flew to all the continents except Antartica with all the major airlines, 5 stars to 1 stars, let me share few things with you. You might know some of them, but if you don’t, maybe you learn something, no offense.
Code sharing is nothing to do with being in the same alliance. TK code shares with Qatar sometimes and TK doesn’t code are with Lufthansa on any flight.
Your luggages might get lost in Munich, not necessarily in Istanbul. And if it does get lost in Munich, it is nothing to do with TK. Even if it got lost in Ataturk, it is nothing to do with TK. Ground services are responsible. As an example, I was flying from Washington DC to Birmingham UK via Frankfurt. The leg from DC was with United Airlines and the leg from Frankfurt was with Lufthansa. Both are reputable airlines for sure. Due to horrible snow storm in DC, my first flight got delayed for 4 hours which we have waited in plane, with no food or drinks. So my connection time got extremely short resulting I had to run between terminals in Frankfurt and if you know Frankfurt, it is huge. Anyways I made it to my flight and flew to UK, but my luggage didn’t make it. Could you guess where my luggage was? If you say Frankfurt you are wrong, it stayed in DC for no apparent reason. Simply somebody didn’t put it into the plane. Well it came 3 days later.
Sometimes things happen for no reason whatsoever. Another example I can give you is, few years ago, I was scheduled to fly from San Francisco to Istanbul via Schiphol Amsterdam. The carrier was obviously KLM, a reputable one right. I had checked in, had my boarding pass in my hand went to the gate in the airport at SF. The lady on the dest said, the plane is full and im not kidding there were tens of people. It wasn’t simply overbooking or something. Even if it were, we wouldn’t have had our boarding passes. I had a seat on that plane. What has happened is, by a mistake KLM has sent a small plane to SF from Amsterdam so everybody couldn’t get into that plane. I remember a lady waiting like me, who had a award winning cat in the cargo part of the plane that she couldn’t get into. So her cat flew alone to Amsterdam, again no idea what has happened to that cat. Until I found my way and regain my consciousness, the lady has left her post at the desk and I didn’t have any official person who could help me from KLM. Somehow I found my way to Air France desk (which was the next gate luckily) and asked them whether they can help. So again luckily they put me on the 2nd flight to Paris so I’ve managed to travel to Istanbul. I had to wait 6 hours in the terminal (in US, you can’t leave the terminal in any circumstances) ,no food and drinks. No help from KLM and when I have arrive to Istanbul, my luggage was waiting for me in lost and found.
My understanding is your Samsonite got damaged. Again TK is not responsible for it, and you can’t rule out where it does got damaged, it could be in Prague, it could be in Istanbul. But if you got a report for it they compensate it. Something has happened to me, they’ve managed to crack my hard case Delsey on the way from Istanbul to Birmingham and with no delay I got my payment. I didn’t care where it got damaged, could be Birmingham or Istanbul.
About Turkish people, what can I say. Unfortunately we don’t smile much and we look serious, angry, nervous, hostile, however you’d like to describe it. I got that comment from lots of my Asian friends, particularly from Thais. My girlfriend is Thai by the way and she is not happy with majority of Turkish people. But there is a saying of Turkish hospitality as well. I know the staff in the airport and on the plane should smile and be polite. I hope one day, TK sorts this problem out, at least for the staff on the plane. Try flying with Lufthansa or BA, and see how smiley(!) the staff are.
Lastly you have compared Changi with Istanbul Airport. I’m sorry to say this but I guess you don’t know much of air traveling. Changi has been chosen the best airport in the world and comparing it with Istanbul is like comparing Ferrari with Tata or Hermes with Zara. The second example is more appropriate for you I guess 🙂
I hope your future experiences with traveling will be more pleasent but do not draw conclusions with anger. It won’t help you 🙂
Happy New year and best wishes,
Fatih
Thank you Fatih for your comment! I agree that this was written sleepily in anger (and boredom during the waiting really) so many facts haven’t been checked. I do still hope to visit Istanbul someday and indulge in a Turkish bath or two and eat all their Turkish Delights because that snack is awesome.
I’m flying to Paris from Singapore on TK, transit in Ataturk and coming back from Milan to Singapore on TK, transit in Ataturk as well, in like, less than a week?
And I am literally praying to every God and Goddesses and deities after reading your article. Also for me and my family’s baggage.
So glad you managed to get out of that creepy toilet situation safe and sound, and there seems to be a lot of armed guards or airport security staff but none gave chase? At all? Your luck must have had been at 110%.
Whatever it is, I hope your family and all of your baggage is now safe and sound back here.
We were unlucky to have been stranded at crunch time. Some of my friends who have flown with them generally don’t have much to complain about. But of course, us Singaporeans have been pampered by our culture here so we do have to manage our expectations.
Feel you man. Was stranded in an airport overnight at Frankfurt before and it was one of the worst days of my life. Hope you won’t have to go through this ordeal ever again !
Turkish Airline is 4 star. There are only 7 airline with 5 star, which is Singapore, Qatar, Garuda,, Hainan, Cathay. Arianna and ANA.
Horrendous experience for you and your party. I transited Ataturk airport 28 December, truly a bad experience….and thats when it’s fully operational!!!! Lounges overcrowded n loads of Russian kids using them as a playground whilst their parents and the Turkish lounge staff not giving a rats ass about the noise levels! I hope you have decided to avoid this airport for any future travel plans. Award winning airline….my ass!! Mustav bought that title for themselves from eBay!!!
Still hope to visit Istanbul some day. It’s truly a beautiful place with funny and helpful people.
My family and I were having a meal at the food center. One of the employees there had a chat with us and let us know where would be the best place to get Wifi, where to go for some fresh air, and even taught us some of his language. He also brought his supervisor along to say hi!
Istanbul is a city, not a country.
Agreed, stupid brain wasn’t working.
Yikes, I was looking into flying them due to a promotion from my home airport in the states to Italy but now I’m rethinking and not sure the best and cheapest way to get to VCE from ATL 😦
That’s so terrible 😦 avoiding Turkish airlines from now on! Did you know you can claim up to €600 each for your delay, because the flight was from an EU country? Just google flight delay EU and follow their steps.. Good luck
Your post is very interesting. I have just returned from 15 days eastern Europe with CS Travel and Alex Fong as tour leader. We are all very happy with the trip. I think it just happened wrong time and wrong place for you. However, this can be a unique experience for you and your family though at that moment it can be so stressful. I agreed with you that we have to get our travel insurance especially winter time! Nice sharing, thanks!
Will convey this to Alex. So glad you had a great time!