Hi,

I would like to enquire aboout very disturbing incident involving Singapore Airlines. I would like to know if anyone here has heard of similar cases or knows how to address the issue.

Brief summary:

New Zealand citizen flies from Auckland to Turkey on Malaysian airlines. No problems encountered whatsoever. On the way back, she decides to fly on Singapore Airlines and catch a mini vacation in Singapore on transit to New Zealand. However, after buying the tickets on the phone, then checking in online, then checking in at the airport with Singapore Airlines staff, then going through immigration at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, then going to the boarding gate, at that point she is stopped and told she is not allowed to fly!

After an hour-long discussion, she learns that (according to the Singapore airlines station chief) she has been flagged by the United States Transport Security Administration (TSA) as a security risk. Now, it's not uncommon for people to have name mismatches, etc. and be put on a no-fly list by the US government, but for the TSA list to be enforced by Singapore Airlines in a foreign country while NOT en route to the US or even flying over US airspace, now that's weird!

To prove that this is, in fact, a TSA related matter, Singapore Airlines officials even gave the poor old lady (she's 66 years old!) the TSA's phone number and asked to "sort it out with them"! When she did that, she got a standard "we cannot confirm or deny whether anybody is on any Federal watch list.."

She was also told (by SingAir) that she's not only barred from flying on Singapore Airlines, but only ANY AIRLINE ANYWHERE in the world! The woman and her family are basically stuck in Turkey and the New Zealand embassy has said it can't do anything about the situation. Simply unbelievable.

Has anyone heard of or encountered anything like this? Does the TSA have such authority, or is that Singapore Airlines (perhaps due to membership in the Star Alliance) voluntarily enforcing TSA no-fly lists on its own passengers?