Turkish Airlines

retsbed

Hi Fab MSE'ers :j

I am working on a claim on behalf of a friend and need some advice.

He flew to Dhaka via Istanbul from Heathrow with his wife and 6 month old baby in April 2015.
The flight was late taking off from Heathrow (less than 3 hours) which meant that they missed the connecting flight at Istanbul and had to wait 24 hours for another flight therefore arriving a day later than planned.

They did not have to pay for food or hotel but they did incur visa costs of £70.

I have submitted a claim on his behalf via Resolver. TA have responded and offered to reimburse the visa costs. Great.

What I need to know is do they qualify for further compensation? It was very stressful for them and they were shunted from pillar to post by the airport staff in Istanbul.

Here is an extract from TA response:

We have already checked with our Heathrow office the delay details and can confirm that the delay from London to Istanbul flight TK 1980 was 53 minutes which is less than 3 hours.
The delay occurred on IST/DAC route which flight TK 0712 is not departing from EU.

Please note that Turkish Airlines is a non-EU carrier and Istanbul is in a non-EU country. We confirm that the ticket is London-Istanbul –DAC and it involves 2 separate flights. As the delay from London to Istanbul is less than 3 hours, EU Regulation 261/ 2004 is not applicable in this case.

We would like you to check EU Regulation under Article 3 – Scope, 1 (b) –
---(b) to passengers departing from an airport located in a third country to an airport situated in the territory of a Member State to which the Treaty applies, unless they received benefits or compensation and were given assistance in that third country, if the operating air carrier of the flight concerned is a Community Carrier. – Please note that Turkish Airlines is NOT a Community Carrier.

We respectfully refer you to the case of Sanghvi v Cathay Pacific Airways (2012) case in which English High Court looked at this exact point and held that the Regulation does not apply to the case of a missed connection which occurs outside of the EU as a non-EU carrier. High Court applied that “flight did not depart from the UK but from Istanbul, therefore regulation does not apply.

However, considering the duration of the delay, we understand that you had a difficult time and had experienced a lot of inconvenience.
Although the delay was beyond our control, we would be happy to offer you as a goodwill gesture GBP70.73 for your visa expenses

Tyzap

Hi retsbed,

This is what the regulations say....

(h) ‘final destination’ means the destination on the ticket presented at the check-in counter or, in the case of directly connecting flights, the destination of the last flight; alternative connecting flights available shall not be taken into account if the original planned arrival time is respected;

Having said that, it will be very difficult, if not impossible to enforce this on TA.

I would suggest putting the flight details into a couple of the flight claim calculators that can be found on-line. If anyone is willing to take on your case go with them.

Good luck.

retsbed

GREAT NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TA have agreed to compensate my friends 600 EU each for their delay!!!

Thank you Resolver!!!