Let me be the first to say that I'm normally a supporter of Turkish airlines but a recent experience and their failure to even acknowledge my concerns has left me feeling less than confident :
A recent flight we took with TA to Malè in the Maldives took us via Istanbul and after touching down in Malè the flight was due to carry on to Columbo Sri Lanka. It became apparent after landing in Malè that our luggage was not there as all the other passengers had collected bags and departed the airport.
After a very stressful hour, the baggage handling clerk at Malè airport noticed that although we had tickets and boarding cards for Malè, our luggage had been labeled with the airport code CMB (Columbo, Sri Lanka) once the mistake had been discovered, the captain was contacted and take off delayed while our luggage was located and returned to us.
I view this as a very serious flaw in the security with Turkish Airlines that their check in system will allow passengers to board a flight for one destination and allow their luggage to be labeled and destined to another destination. I'm sure passengers with Turkish airlines would be horrified at the prospect of being on a flight with unclaimed luggage in the hold.
With the current level of terrorism around the borders here, I would have thought Turkish airlines would have taken my concern seriously, when in fact after writing to them nearly one month ago and sending them three requests to answer my concerns, they have chosen to ignore this matter, I can only assume in the hope that it will go away.
Maybe if they spent more time listening and responding to their customers and less time telling us all how great they are, then we might all be happier and more importantly, much safer.
