Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles - Stuck in Sao Paulo,

I don’t know if I post this in the right section but as it concerns TK I'll put it here.

A first occurred to me tonight.

I had a ticket DKR-GRU (TK) GRU-ASU (PZ) and return all in J class, on 2 tickets but on the same reservation number. And emitted on PZ/JJ paper (actually PZ paper)

Everything went fine until my last return sector GRU-DKR, I had a couple of hours of connection time in GRU and when I went to the gate to get my boarding pass (It could not be emitted in ASU). The staff greats me an told me they were waiting for me. She takes my paper and after searching a bit in the system she tells me there is a small problem and that she have to talk to her manager. In the system the status on my last segment appears as flown (which is impossible since boarding didn’t even start), and that they can’t give me a boarding pass. They control with TK in Istanbul and they say PZ/JJ made an error in ASU and they should “liberate” the ticket. They called JJ/PZ office to solve the problem but they couldn’t solve it and there wasn’t a manager available. While all this was happening boarding has started and finished, and the TK station manager decided he couldn’t hold back the plane for me (understandable if JJ/PZ couldn’t give him an ok). So I saw my plane leave in front of me (half empty by the way).
I was escorted by the ground personnel of TK to pickup my baggage and they accompanied me to TAM (it was 01:00 am) so they could find a solution. They said it appeared to be a computer glitch but they had to check with ASU. They gave me a hotel and meal voucher and told me they would call me today (Saturday).

Not having received a call I went to GRU to resolve the problem. I finally got in contact with a PZ supervisor, and he talked with ASU and it appeared that the status historic was changed to flown the day of my departure from DKR 2 weeks before by TK.

I have now received by mail all the history and the whole thing is very confusing, in some systems it shows the GRU-DKR as flown and in others as NS. I had asked my travel agent to confirm that everything was ok a couple of days before my trip back and she confirmed everything appeared fine.

Further more the change in my departure from DKR seems to be an automatic change not done by a human action.

PZ/JJ tried to contact TK all day to find a solution but their offices here were closed and nobody answered the phones the whole day (there is no flight today).

PZ/JJ prolonged my voucher and we agreed to check with TK tomorrow and get me on sundays plane to DKR with 2 days of delay.

So now I’m for my second night in a row in GRU not knowing if the problems will be resolved tomorrow. I’ve also lost my next plane (I had a new flight Sunday night to BKO, over 36 hours after I was supposed to arrive in DKR).

It should be noted that everybody have been helpful, but everybody seem confused about the situation.

Has anybody experienced a similar situation?

Best regards J1J

Wow, that's horrible. I don't have much advice, nothing similar has happened to me but will you be able to replace or recover the cost of your flight to BKO? I hope so :(

Good luck!

Welcome to the wonderful world of etickets. Had you had a paper ticket there wouldn't have been any issues.

Sao Paulo is not the worst place to get stuck, however.

I arrived in DKR this morning. But the problem only got solved 3 hours before departure of the GRU-DKR flight. The solution came from JJ/PZ producing a document (I don't recall the nature of it) to TK, after which TK permitted me to board.

I suspect that the now will discuss between them who is to blame (or if it’s Amadeus or sabre or whatever).

The whole day, each airline laid the blame completely on the other. I had to tell them that it wasn’t really my problem who made the mistake as it certainly wasn’t mine and that I paid a full price for my business ticket and expected the service I paid for to be provided.

In the lounge I managed to rebook my hotel and book a new ticket from DKR to BKO with ET on Tuesday morning (260USD in economy). I didn’t try to get either airline to pay for it, as my priority was to get on board the GRU-DKR flight, and that I frankly got tired of discussing the issue.

I will prepare a letter to the company with all the documentation, and send it to JJ/PZ and TK as well as my insurance company.

Otherwise the experience on board with TK was again rather good but the J cabin was very empty (around 10% LF in J).

And yes GRU is not the worst place to get stuck, but when you have to spend 2 whole days in the airport arguing you can’t really enjoy the city.

But I had a fun experience waiting for the transport to the hotel. A group of girls (I think students travelling together) took turns standing next to me and got their friends to take pictures and giggling. I thought it was fun, but my wife didn’t when I told her the story on the phone hehe ☺, she warned me of how dangerous Brazilian women are ☺.

They let the plane fly empty and not gave this men his seat. This is really bad!

They let the plane fly empty and not gave this men his seat. This is really bad!

If the eticket shows that the coupon has been used what are they supposed to do???

Wow..

It doesn't matter who's fault it is that your coupon was marked as flown, you as a passenger shouldn't have to suffer. TK should have let you board straight away and deal with the technicalities later.

Please keep us updated on what happens!

I'm still waiting to get more precise information and documentation on exactly how the error occured. As soon that this is in place I'll ask for compensation.

I'm contenplating asking for reimbursement of the new ticket I had to buy (260US$), and use the EU rules (even if they do not apply in this context as a base for compensation and ask for 600 Euros. Sadly my hopes for a response is pretty low.

It doesn't matter who's fault it is that your coupon was marked as flown, you as a passenger shouldn't have to suffer. TK should have let you board straight away and deal with the technicalities later.


Of course the pax shouldn't suffer. Personally I much prefer paper tickets.

Of course the pax should suffer. Personally I much prefer paper tickets.

:) Thank you for wanting me to suffer hehe.

But even after my experience in GRU I'm not sure I would prefer paper tickets. E-tickets do have some advantages, not beeing afraid of loosing it, not needing to go to the travel agency etc.

Of course the pax should suffer. Personally I much prefer paper tickets.

I don't think it matters, if something is gonna go wrong it will. I had paper tickets for J class flights and all was ok until we were about to leave CAI for SIN on SQ. The agent advised us that system says that we hold neither an electronic nor a paper ticket. We almost missed our flight. Flights originated from SIN to BKK_ATH_CAI without any problems. Go figure!!!

:) Thank you for wanting me to suffer hehe.

There was an unintended typo there. Missing the "shouldn't" part. :D :D

But even after my experience in GRU I'm not sure I would prefer paper tickets. E-tickets do have some advantages, not beeing afraid of loosing it, not needing to go to the travel agency etc.

With etickets the airlines can much better control what is going on i.e. no missing segments etc. I have spent hours at airports where agents have had trouble taking control over the flight coupon on etickets and other similar problems. Had it been a paper one just lifting the coupon off the book would have been sufficient.