flyerby

Can someone point to the regulations on an official Marrocan website stating that in this case an over 55 year old person is exempt from getting prior authorization?

nacho

The pax who were denied to board were not Swiss citizens, EU law shouldn't be applied here - the route was IST-CMN. OP lives in CH but the in-law are living in Congo.

Yes there is a potential court case but it is going to take time and effort and $, and this is so wrong that the ground staff don't do their job properly, and trust me I have been through that many times even at CPH. When we were flying to Hong Kong from there many years ago, every single time they were looking for a Chinese visa in our passports. When we said Hong Kong doesn't have visa requirements they still look as if we were trying to game the system, and instead of checking Timatic, they went to their boss to ask. It was insane and we wasted like 30 minutes waiting for this ordeal.

Once a check-in agent at HKG told my dad that the kids could fly into PEK without an onward ticket to CPH (they were supposed to do 144 hours visa free transit there), so he took the tickets print out from them. My kids were flown as UM and I was waiting for over 3 hours at arrival at PEK without knowing what happened. My kids said the person who took them through immigration didn't speak english/cantonese and of course the immigration didn't speak either of the languages either. So after 3h they let them go.

They ought to know, but they don't. So, as pax we have to make sure that they know. The inconvenience is on us, not on them and yes we can take them to court but can we get the time that wasted and the anxiety caused by that to be compensated?

PG2023

Hello. I have a question:

we flew with Turkish Airlines from Belgrade via IST to LAX. The BEG-IST flight arrived later and (obviously) departed later about 15 min. We must have docked at 12:15, but docked at about 12:35. Our connection with IST-LAX flight was 1 hour (it was to depart at 13:15).
Of course, even after running through all the IST airport, we were late for the flight (As about 20+ people at the gate).
Turkish Care (who dont really care) at B1 gate issued boarding passes for the 17-hour-later flight, they signed a stamped a form that we filled in - and we filled in that they "acknowledge their full responsibility and liability for this misconnection". And they offered "a 5* hotel in the center of Istanbul + transfer there and back" for these 17 hours. We agreed thinking "okay, at least we'll walk around Taksim square or somewhere else at night to see the city". This agreement is also written on the paper they signed and stamped at the Turkish Care desk

Well,.. during the transfer the turkish driver was holding a phone in one hand chatting with some girl, and driving with the other hand (it violates even Turkish laws), the hotel was a 3* Hilton Hampton Inn 1 HOUR DRIVE from the city center )), in some upper-left (on the map) part of Istanbul, where an airplane takes-off over your head every 2-3 minutes, and you cant sleep because closed windows do not help, the shower in the hotel was not working, the 'dinner' in the hotel was water+chemicals that imitate juice flavor, stale cold 100yr old potatoes and EMPTY TRAYS of 'pastry' ))) I mean, what?! We filmed it all on video, we recorded 100% of our dialogues with Turkish Airlines employees on our phones, we filmed how the driver was using the phone while driving etc. So we have a TON of video evidence of their lies, negligence etc.

I saw a "flightright" company mentioned in this thread. Went there and passed their quick test, and it says we're not eligible for their service (i GUESS because we flew from IST to LAX, not inside Europe, and we're Americans).
Can anyone advise some lawyer / company who are successful in suing Turkish or similar airlines in cases like this because as we see it (first-time travelers with Turkish), Turkish Airlines has a malicious business practice in the first place and at 100% fault for the emotional distress: even SELLING tickets with 1 hour connection in IST must be deemed illegal: it is an impossible-to-make connection EVEN in case every airplane arrives strictly on time: the distance between gates is so huge you cant make it on time to your gate. So the deal is 100% not in a passenger's favor from the start. Plus all the negligence in hiring contractors (like bus companies) who drive without hands-free devices, intentionally endangering the lives of their passengers.

We'd love to sue, but I GUESS we'll have to go for it in Europe. But we're ready to go all-in for it.

TPJ

You can find Turkish (country not airline) equivalent of EU261 rules here:

https://fliphtml5.com/trxr/ynvy/REGU...NG_BY_AIR_.../

I guess there is nothing about crazy drivers or inedible meals there, but you might be eligible for a delayed flight compensation. Worth checking before you start spending money on lawyers...

kiribati

I sense your distress here. But to be honest leave it. Doesn't seem to be a case where you can sue. A complaint though would be good. On their feedback from. See what they say.

kiribati

this is great. Didnt know Turkey had a similar law with even same compensation levels. Go for the 600 eur !

PG2023

[QUOTE=TPJI guess there is nothing about crazy drivers or inedible meals there, but you might be eligible for a delayed flight compensation. Worth checking before you start spending money on lawyers...[/QUOTE]

thanks for the link! The info about the crazy drivers and inedible meals are the facts that prove what is called 'negligence' in the US. A company that negligently puts customers' lives in danger in USA can lose a TON of money in the court of law - not just 600 Euro for the delay, but hundreds of thousands if not millions, just be cause they could care, could control their business processes, and they negligently dont do it. One of Turkish Airlines employees told us (on the record) "We sell too many tickets to care about all the passengers" - after I told her that, say, in Dubai airport when we had a short connection, we had a person with a "SHORT CONNECTION" sign in her hands, and an electric buggy to deliver ALL the passengers (economy class by the way!) who could be late for the next flight to the gate on time. So TA employee openly said that, in short, they dont care because there are too many of us, passengers, and they are a super busy company. )) This record alone, be it an American airline company, would help them lose their case in ABSOLUTELY ANY court in the US.
So I mentioned these details (and we have A LOT OF another negligent and intentionally distressful moments like this from their side on the video records) in case some lawyer is reading the thread and wants to pick up the case.

ISTFlyer

Welcome to FT!

I would say that TK has fulfilled their legal obligations of duty of care by providing accommodation, transportation and meals during the delay. I am not sure if any document that was handed to you ( which TK would provide ) would say 5* hotel in the city center though. If so, please do kindly attach a photo of that document here.

Regarding the quality of the food received, unfortunately there is nothing to do; as well as for the irresponsible driver, if you complain to the authorities, the driver would be penalized and maybe the vehicle would be towed for a couple of days but that would be it.

Regarding the malicious practices, TK has ZERO fault here, 1 hour is an enough timeframe to connect at Istanbul Airport if both flights are on time and in this case, the inbound flight was delayed so TK applied the protocol according to Turkish SHGM ( Civil Aviation Directorate ) rights. I am sorry but if this was going to distress, you shouldn't be booking this connection at the first place.

A private travel insurance ( if you do have one ) might have got you a better hotel or a rebooking on another airline on their own expense though which might have smoothened your experience.
Also, websites similar to "Flightright" deal with European Delay Compensation rather than Connection Experience complaints. For a potential compensation, I would agree with the above posters.

nacho

TK hotel desk told me in multiple incidents that I'm getting a 5 star hotel - I learned to just laugh about it. They think everything is 5* - maybe it's the culture to cheer people up.

OP got Hampton Inn which is already really nice as it's party of Hilton. The breakfast should be nice. We were put into a hotel with 5 stars over the logo which qualifies it as a 5* hotel

It's not that easy to get a hold of travel insurance claims department even if you have one - they only work weekday office hours and you have to be lucky that you need help during that timeframe. Even though the terms might seem that you are eligible but there is always a risk that they will just turn it down - I have tried it numerous times in Sweden and I have yet to try that in Denmark but from what I have heard it's pretty bad too. Sometimes they will demand you take what the airline offers to you and you might need their approval before booking anything (which is not possible outside office hours). So, it's like a gamble to use them and we don't.

ISTFlyer

Apparently since the OP is in the USA and according to the credit marketing expert travel bloggers such as Ben Schlappig it looks like an easy case over there ( but with a 6 week wait for the outcome ) with premium credit card insurance unlike Europe. In the link below, he gets offered a Super 8 hotel near Dallas but he goes to the terminal Grand Hyatt at DFW and gets reimbursed: https://onemileatatime.com/guides/am...lay-insurance/

nacho

That would never happen in Scandinavia - they would say you get a room to sleep what more do you want. I don't trust bloggers in general (boardingarea is telling people to pay $400 to buy SAS shares to get *G - there is a caveat for that they "forgot" to mention: you need to hold the shares for 12 full months in order to get SK G . No one knows what's going to happen with SK and EB (despite they tell people that AMEX 241 and SK Lifetime G won't go away - they forgot the word "for now") and I will definitely take this with a grain of salt. He is too famous to be ignored or treated badly and all insurance claim cases are totally YMMV.

What I want to emphasize is that there is always a chance that your insurance might reject the claim and you have to be ok to pay those cost out yourself.

The breakfast at the TK transit hotel was terrible compared to the lounge, so we skipped it until we got to IST.

MitjaPod

You were not in the US (if you have a case with this in US, sue in US). In Europe and Turkey, nobody writes on hot drink cups that the drink inside is hot and can burn you because this is here considered common sense.

ISTFlyer

Due to the US regulations and how DoT regulations work over there, a US carrier is not even responsible to provide duty of care during delays which are not beyond their control such as weather, etc...
American Airlines has updated their contract of carriage last year that they have the right to refund your unflown segments anytime and don't care about your connection at all which obviously isn't against any US law or otherwise how this would be justified.

Also when US carriers do rebook passengers and provide hotels, they usually are 2-3 star hotels next to highways with the only breakfast option being bagels, cream cheese and fruits.
While the breakfast buffet at the Hampton might be basic but still it's much better than someone stranded by a US carrier would get in the USA.

AfterHour

As a data reference point, may I ask, did you fly business class or economy class? Do you have any elite status with TK or any SA airlines?

TPJ

Friendly reminder that Turkey is not yet the 51st state of the USA

You want to lose time and money to litigate TK - your live hour choice...