YuropFlyer

He's departing from ARN, which clearly is part of the EU. Any flight leaving the EU is making it protected, no matter if by EU carrier or not.

Flights going towards the EU are only protected when they're run by an EU carrier (in theory, that would be really favorise to pick an EU carrier for the extra protection, in reality they're often fighting to the death before they're paying it out.. but yeah..)

So far, Trump hasn't singed an EO yet which does make flights having their final destination in the US being invalid for EU customer protection laws So I don't really understand your comment..

This is NOT, by the way, an "irregular operation", as you keep insisting on calling it, but rather a "changing flight data".

Yes, TK should be better, offering better choices. Unfortunately, the "laws" from IATA as well as common sense are more like guidelines. And trust me, I've had other airlines which some hold in high respect (like LH) giving me a very hard time when they changed schedule - similar to here by 24hrs - and let me fight hard for it till they eventually agreed for a similar solution than it would be flying to LAX in this case, with a connection on a *A partner (in my case, the flight was even a LH-codeshare..) - "regular" traveller probably wouldn't have had a chance to make LH eventually agree to it. That told me the lesson that airlines will always use the rule of law to the maximum they can, so you, as a passenger, should do exactly the same. Just more often than not, your stick will be much shorter than that one of the airline.

tcm

they are experts in fending you off when it doesn't suit them like a Grand Bazaar rug trader From my experience they are below average during these situations compared to other airlines, though, I think that EK/EY are also not much better. AFAIK, getting any compensation for cancellations/delays is very very difficult with TK. Threatening with legal action outside Turkey (citing DOT rules in the U.S. etc.) would probably yield results. I don't bother and except them for what they are and try to plan accordingly. My time and nerves are more valuable to me.

sony2012

I think EC261 covers cases under weather conditions happened recently. I am not talking about the compensation but rerouting: the requirement to put the passengers in alternative airline when the flight is departing from EU. I was leaving FRA with TK through IST but TK refused to put me on an alternative nonTK flights directly to the destination without going through the snow-packed Istanbul which caused the cancellation of the second leg. UK CAA recently started a legal case against some airlines that systematically violate EC261 (it seems to be more about the compensation, although the re-routing is under the same requirement of the second leg protection)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-500-each.html

Someone also mentioned a case against KLM but I couldn't find the case online. If anyone knows similar cases, do let us know

Often1

First, IATA is a trade group. TK is one of the largest commercial air carriers in the world. IATA has less than no leverage with TK and TK knows exactly what it is doing.

Second, there is no precedential case in which EC 261/2004 has been held to require a carrier to rebook onto another carrier. While most consider the rebooking provisions to include other carriers, not all do and others only do this for certain passengers. But, invoking EC 261/2004 will not help even on a segment covered by the Regulation to get OP rebooked onto another carrier. It goes without saying that this ticket is covered as it is on a non-EU carrier departing from the EU (ARN). TK has acknowledged this by honoring one of OP's three options under the Regulation, a full refund without penalty.

If you prefer the TK product, you may find that trip interruption / cancellation insurance is relatively inexpensive and will cover these hiccups, allowing you to simply either accept what TK offers or to take a refund and then not worry about any additional costs should ticket prices have increased on other carriers.

sony2012

My understanding of EC261 is that the airline must give three options to choose from but offering 1 or 2 is still a violation of EC261. In similar cases TK offers only two, but not the third being re-routing. For airlines like TK where re-routing automatically means another carrier, I don't think TK can interpret the rule differently but I am not an expert there. Also, the guideline published by EC clearly states that re-routing with different airline is required:
" re-routing should be offered at no additional cost to the passenger, even where passengers are re-routed with another air carrier or on a different transport mode or in a higher class or at a higher fare than the one paid for the original service;" Page 14 under Passenger rights. So how is TK honoring the Ec261 given this statement from EC?

Second one is a question. I do get insurance from the credit cards but in reality it seems like a grey area. Suppose, I dump my TK flight in the middle of my flight and buy an expensive last minute ticket with my card again. Can I claim the new ticket cost from my credit card company through their insurance? If so, on what ground? Trip delay, disruption or cancellation? The trip is delayed due to weather, let's say, but because of that I cancelled my ticket, so which one would apply? There was one time I called the insurance company and the insurance agent said I would know the result only after applying for the cost because it was not a clear case. Does anyone have any experience with insurances in similar cases?

moeser

The cancellation was done at the day of the flight after waiting for 8 hours at the airport.

No vouchers for food or drinks were offered during this time.Flight was in J.
I got a compensation of 75€ from TK for incurred costs.

YuropFlyer

You stated that you had a flight to ISB - from where? Assuming IST-ISB, neither of them have EU261 protection, and TK isn't an EU carrier.

Turkey does have a version of passenger rights - you need to check what your allowance would be under that one.

Besides that, your case is completely different to that from OP - his flight is Ex-EU, was cancelled 3 weeks+ ahead, your flight was delayed/then cancelled, and didn't touch EU from what I can see.

tcm

Fact remains that TK handels these situations pretty badly. They should at least be more willing to re-route pax on other carriers when possible irrespective of legal requirements. In my limited experience, both LX (on several instances) were willing to re-book me on TK during cancellations or long delays. Even though these were dirt cheap P fares and I do not hold any status with them. Again SQ was also happy to rebook me on EY on an instance when the a/c went tech resulting in a 6 hr delay. On TK however I had several horrible customer service experiences, they just didn't care. May be I am just unlucky or they don't like me

There is a similar thread on the LX forum and totti posted a link to this site: https://www.flightright.com/

I haven't used them before, but they seem to get results

[QUOTE]Have you tried Flightright? They handled 6 cases for me so far with a 100% success rate. In 4 cases they had to sue the sue the airline and it took about 2 years from filing the claim to finally getting compensation but I really did not mind. No risk, fair and transparent cost structure and no hassles. I never had to deal with LX though.[QUOTE]

hfly

Unfortunately some airlines are better than others in these situations and you have to know how to deal with each specifically.

Examples:

These days when BA does the same thing, online they will give you lots of rebooking options, ONLY on BA, irrespective of whether you get stuck somewhere for a night or not. The solution? Do not write in, do not phone up. Show up at the airport, where the airport staff will FIM you onto another carrier, helps if you know what other flight(s) you want to be FIM'd onto.

EK (and EY for that matter) are NOTORIOUS for never wanting to rebook people onto other carriers. I have been in several situations where my flight(s) were cancelled or delayed and despite being Gold and despite flying in full whack J, I have had to have multi-hour fights and have had to go up and up the chain in order to get FIM'd onto another carrier because I did not want to spend a night in Dubai (or Abu Dhabi).

QR is even worse. as an example despite flying business, they would not even reroute me into SAW rather than IST when IST airport had just been blown up and was closed, despite the fact that all their IST flights were then cancelled and the SAW flights had plenty of availability.

LH, is hit and miss. I have had times when they have already rerouted me onto better flights in such situations, and other times that they have been quite difficult and required much debate, even when they were clearly at fault for the cancellations.

In my experience, the best airlines for FIM'ing you with least hassles or even proactively to other airlines, irrespective of partnership or alliance are AA, AF, DL and believe it or not IB.

hfly

Almost forgot TK..............

As some have said above, in such situations you generally have much better chances at the airport or outstations, as long is its not Istanbul.

Despite flying Business and being E+ for years I have become EXASPERATED as times when they have cancelled flights and try to insist on putting me up for the night rather than putting me on another carrier. Inevitably the third party contract employees they have seemingly cannot understand why the option of staying FOR FREE (their emphasis not mine) at an IST airport hotel and getting free meals is in no way attractive, when I am on a two day trip and they want me to turn it into one, because they refuse to FIM me. I have learned that ultimately it is down to the fact that in the entire airport there is perhaps one manager who has the authority to do such FIM's and if that employee cannot be found, you are out of luck!

tcm

All fair points hfly, although TGS (Turkish Ground Services) is a semi independent company, so not exactly a third party contractor, as TK owns half of it with TAV. Though that might change soon with the new hub. Also, as you probably know, TK management calls the shots, including issues related to Human Resources . Since TK is ever more dependent on transit traffic, I believe they should have a much more customer oriented mindset, but I guess that is wishful thinking.

Often1

To be clear, the EU is free to issue all of the guidance it wishes.

But, until either a the EC amends the Regulation or there is a precedential court decision requiring rebooking on other carriers, TK and other carriers such as BA and LH will generally refuse to rebook all but their most high-level elite or premium passengers on other carriers.

You have not provided anything which meets that and TK is well aware of the guidance.

Carriers would likely rebook their most elite passengers as a goodwill matter in any event.

Thus, OP is back to what is on offer. Take the refund or the reroute on TK (or Option 3, which is clearly not what he wants - a later trip).

hfly

tcm, they may be semi-independent, but it is all structured in a way that they are third party employees, which of course as has been explained to my by finance guys is one of the ways that TK has made its numbers look good over the last decade by barely increasing their Turkish Airlines employee headcount as the carrier has expanded many fold........short term contracts on the third party employees, easy to terminate, less benefits, etc.

As you note this is worse, as TK employees become scarce on the ground and the third party employees (despite being "cousins") are hardly empowered to do anything.