[Anonymous]

[Cinthya]

This just happened to me yesterday, though since few days before I’ve been thinking that their should just remove their phone number from website info, coz I needed to dial about 20 times a day to be picked up for 2 times.. since it’s urgent, I had no choice but to call them that often.

Can you imagine how desperate I was that I even mailed the Turkish Singapore to help me, I got a prompt reply, but still they wanted me to contact the sales office or the travel agent who issued the tickets of number 2353887174185.

Travel agent was unable to reach them too ( U see how funny this is), so I told the travel agent it’s better I followed up by myself for faster info.

Then, finally after being passed here and there,from office to airport, from one staff to another, finally reached the manager in the different office number from website (got it from the airport staff), he told me the price for rerouting from Odessa to Kiev, the destination was Istanbul. But I said I gotta ask my boss first about the prices and WILL CALL HIM BACK.

Then about half an hour then, I called back, asking how much did I have to pay if I didn’t reroute (the date has been changed from 1st itinerary, but through my travel agent, so I was charged too even though I didn’t reroute). It’s another staff picking up, but he had no clue about the sum, so gotta wait for his manager who’s at that time on the phone. After waiting, he asked me to call back. I did, and after several calls, the manager’s amazingly still on the phone. The last call I did to their office, no one picked up. So, I just called the airport staff again, said that I WANT TO CONFIRM THE REROUTE.

She said she would help me, by calling his manager to do it (she’s new), and she will call back. She did call back, saying it had been remarked, which payment will be paid at Kiev airport, and I thought it’s all settled.

Yesterday, the departure date, my boss called me from Kiev, right from the airport, two hours before departure time, saying that the staff there said he should have flown from Odessa, not Kiev!

So, I called again and again to office, still no one’s there. Then, to airport, line’s busy, and I tried again repeatedly. I reached the girl who said it’s confirmed, and I told her the condition. The only thing she did was referring me to her manager (to his mobile phone), not active, called back again, another number again. And finally reached him. Then, I told him about the condition, he said I didn’t confirm, OH MY GOD!

I told him I’ve called his airport staff saying that I wanted to confirm, and she even called me back! I said this was their internal problem, my boss gotta fly that day.

Guess what, a manager of service world, blamed me back for saying it was their internal problem, for problem which was absolutely not mine! He even dared with raised voice asking me not to interrupt him speaking.

Then he grumbled in Turkish and I said “Pardon?”, he replied me ”I’m not speaking with you.”

U see how polite he was?

He did reroute the ticket, but with unfriendly bye bye, he hang up the phone first.

I called back to the airport staff, asking for explanation whether the staff had asked him to confirm. She said she did, and sorry for his manager usual behavior.

I don’t care whether this is her fault or her manager’s, but I am on the passenger side who didn’t fly for FREE, I should be treated well, particularly when it’s not my fault!

And I’m so grateful that I booked SQ for the next flight to Singapore and Jakarta though it’s much more expensive. I assure you that I am not going to book to any Turkish flight anymore, though my top management in four cities in Indonesia fly to Europe often, IF HE IS STILL THE MANAGER FOR TURKISH INDONESIA.

Thanks to Turkish Airlines before for the ‘very great’ attitude from your representative. I’ll make sure all of my friends, colleagues, and anybody who knows how to tweet be informed about this amazing airline.

[VintageKrug]

To paraphrase advice given in The Graduate:

“One word. Paragraphs.”

[Tom Otley]

Paragraphs now added

[questedh]

Never mind paragraphs (much though I appreciate their importance), some basic grammar would be helpful.
Is that too much to expect from posts on this site?

[BusinessRose]

Now now questedh, don’t be so patronising and do try to respond to the situation being described. With your level of education I am sure you needn’t have to use excessive brain power to understand the problem scenario. There is a possibility that Cinthya’s first language simply isn’t English and there certainly isn’t anything wrong with that. No room for discrimination here….please go away!

[amalkov]

You should know, Turks are the impolitest people on the world.They are well known with their rudness.

[SimonRowberry]

Folks,

Look at my previous postings about TK’s crassness, rudeness (especially on the ground) and lack of safety procedures. I’ve written about this a number of times.

I’ve been twice to Istanbul is 14 days, but on a different carrier, as I swore I’d never fly TK again and have stuck by that.

I experienced further rudeness from their ground handlers (you can’t get away from them with Star Alliance carriers at IST!) at IST on Sunday. I mentioned this to the TK ticket office staff on arrival at BHX on Monday morning. The ticket staff at BHX have always been sweetness and light (and they are Turkish) and I explained my raft of bad experiences with TK over the last 12 months or so.

The chaps at the ticket desk said that they sympathised. They had experienced similar attitudes when they had been in IST for training. I quote them:

“You can tell people to smile and to be polite. However, you can’t make them.”

Says it all and it’s too darned true.

TK are an awful airline. They flouted safety rules in a very serious manner on one flight I took with them, 6 weeks after they’d had a fatal crash at AMS, and practically threw me out of the CIP Lounge when I wished to raise the issue with senior staff. The staff are unbearably rude at IST, especially at the CIP Lounge.

Bluntly, my advice is don’t use them. I would call them a “Developing World Carrier”, except that would be insulting to a number of very good carriers from the Developing World. If they spent less money on Kevin Costner and more on delivering a safe and polite service, they might be possibly have a chance to improve.

Simon

[oldchinahand]

In my experience most flag carrying airlines based from ‘the developing world’ do tend to reflect rather strongly in their attitudes and ethos to customer service the most dominant,long established social attitudes of the country.

With TK this is particularly true.

By and large in Turkey the male is king, aggressively dominating, arrogant and prone to laziness. Women are still regarded largely as tools to be used and routinely abused . I have great sympathy for the women that work with and for these arrogant louts.

Had Cinthya been male and Turkish she would certainly have received better treatment…….but not much as TK would appear to have never felt the need for much in the way of customer service on the ground, in the cabin, or in the maintenance hanger for that matter.

I fully agree with Simon Rowberry…TK is an awful airline and if going to IST from HKG I now take CX/BA via LHR rather than the direct TK flight ,although the BA service to IST is not too flash ether as of course it is always full of refugees from TK and no need for BA to try very hard.

[SimonRowberry]

Interesting comments, OCH, with which it is hard to disagree.

All I will add is that it is actually the women at TK whom I have often found to be ruder than the men!

Also, that generally in Turkey, at hotels, restaurants and in the street, I have found the Turks to be an extremely friendly, polite and helpful race. That is one reason I find TK such an enigma in terms of their ignorant attitudes.

Simon

[Hess963]

Hi everyone !!

As Simon and others have commented lately TK is not very well known for superior pax service on the ground. Rather impolite and rude are the common appearances. I had my experiences shared with you in our past comments( very well in the archivs now ). But only with the help of BT Asia Pacific through Margie Logarta and Julian Tan — my problem with TK was solved. So since last year and now — no big improvements through your experiences! Very sad indeed !

[siwipurnomo]

thanks to this info. I read in our daily paper about their promo. I hv to rethink after read comments.

[robsmith100]

Here is an interesting development. TK are now putting chefs on flights between Hong Kong and Istanbul, so be careful about complaing about the food when up in the sky..

http://www.4hoteliers.com/4hots_nshw.php?mwi=7853

[PsyDtoBe]

Now I wonder why TK offers cheap ticket from Asia to Europe!

[skyguy79]

The only source of comfort for me here is the fact that others have experienced firsthand the poor service this airline offers.

In April 2008 ,I had a very very bad experience with Turkish Airlines.

I was travelling on a ZED ticket through my employer ,a major international airline and this was my first airline job.

My ticket was for MAN-DOH-LHE on Qatar Airways on my airline’s paper.

Unfortunately the QR flight got full and after having the ticket endorsed over to Turkish they agreed to let me fly MAN-IST-KHI ,after arriving in KHI,I would then buy a new ticket for Lahore.

Lisa at the Turkish Airlines ticket desk told me that 60 seats were available on the IST-KHI flight and I only had to collect my onward boarding pass at the transit desk in IST.
This was further confirmed by a TK rep called Mohammed and also one of the TK managers at the gate.

An uneventful flight ( TK1994) with curt and unfriendly crew plus lukewarm meals from MAN-IST was only the start of my problems.

On arrival at Istanbul I was told I can’t fly to Karachi as there wasn’t enough mileage on my ticket. After over 1 hour of phone calls to Manchester to investigate why they had misinformed me and let me fly across Europe plus calling Pakistan to reschedule my plans, the TK Pax Service Manager at IST allowed me to fly to Kuwait and I bought a new ticket for KWI-LHE costing £187.00. My total spending money was only £500.00.

Since I got back from Pakistan I had written to the Chairman Temel Kotil and emailed him many times with all supporting documents and had no response and wrote to the Manchester Station Manager. I also contacted the AUC.

This was back in May 2008 .

Naturally fed up with no response ,a few months later I called TK in MAN.

Hulya immediately started rattling off that staff had advised me that I was only travelling on chance ?
I advised that they told me I would get on the KHI flt and only needed to collect the boarding pass from IST. She disagreed and I mentioned to her that she wasnt even there and therefore could not pass such comments.

First of all I had been waiting a year for a reply from the CEO and then Hulya’s bad attitude. She told me that Halil, the Station Manager had asked her not to reply to my letter. I asked for the Station Manager’s number and it was barked to me as if to get rid of me.

I immediately called the Station Manager and I was talking normally with no no anger and complete calmness and yet 1 minute into the call he abruptly told me he won’t be replying to my letter and won’t speak to me on the phone either and hung up. I then got a half baked response from Istanbul Customer Relations stating I was wrong, I had apparently been told that when I get to Istanbul I may not get the onwards flight. They are shooting themselves in the foot there. Firstly if that had been advised I wouldn’t have even got on the aircraft at Manchester.

Secondly, as soon as I landed at IST the TK staff said the ticket had not enough mileage for IST-KHI. So going back to if they HAD said that I may not get on,then they are contradicting their colleagues in Istanbul. It ruined the start of my first international holiday in 3 years and really upset me. I got the Pakistan THY manager involved and he was quite nice but is now based in Budapest. So my enquiry has gone from MAN-IST-KHI-BUD-IST-MAN-BUD-KHI…..and still we are nowhere.

I had great dreams of starting to use Turkish Airlines on frequent trips to Istanbul and soon onwards to Lahore . I can’t see this happening soon.

I also wanted a second honeymoon in Istanbul and would have been paying full fare Business Class.

These bad grapes in Manchester have left a bad taste in my mouth.

Mr Temel Kotil , the Turkish CEO seems uninterested in helping and I am not even being treated like a human being let alone as a customer from another airline.

I am deeply upset that an airline can fall to these levels and so shortly after joining the Star Alliance.

Best Wishes ,

[Author]

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