CTA - Crap & Totally Abismal (Cyprus Turkish Airlines (KTHY))

Member Name: a-rdavis

Product:	Cyprus Turkish Airlines (KTHY)
Date:	18/10/03 (3596 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: If you find any - do admit yourself to a mental hospital!

Disadvantages: Anything and Everything!

KTHY - Kibris Turk Havva Yollari (Cyprus Turkish Airlines). After flying with these (if that's what you could call it), I can safely, definaitely say, I would prefer MyTravel / Airtours, and read my review on them to see why I say this!!!

KTHY must be the WORST, and I mean THE WORST airline company I have ever experienced! We flew to Ercan (Northern Cyprus), from London Stansted via Dalaman. As Ercan is in the North area of Cyprus, you cannot fly directly to the airport (I don't know why, it's got something to do with the authorities!), anyway, you can fly with KTHY from London Heathrow, London Stansted, Manchester, or Glasgow International to Ercan via Antalya, Dalaman, Izmir, or Ankara (which are all in Turkey), and then proceed onto a connecting flight to Ercan.

At London Stansted we were greeted with 1 check-in desk, which was assisted with 1 VERY unhappy woman! She was not at all curteous, she had a disgraceful attitude towards us, (and considering the flight had been delayed and we were 2 teenagers flying on our own, you'd expect at least a smile!). She asked a few questions, tried catching us out, as if we were going to be terrorists!! and then told us there was a delay and we'd have to wait for more information... not one appology, no anything!

So, we waited at Stansted for a total of 5 hours!!! Watching thousands of passengers head off on their holidays on-time, and happy with their services! There was another long delay at the airport on board with MyTravel but at least their passengers were cared for! We heard no news from KTHY until we were called to the boarding gate!

The aircraft was a Boeing 737-800 and was reasonably clean due to the fact they did a 40 minute turnaround of a medium sized aircraft! There was NO ON-BOARD ENTERTAINMENT, but luckily we had bought magazines as my friend, who travels with them frequently to visit her mum in Cyprus, already knew about the entertainment, so we had a lit
tle to keep us occupied on the flight!

The cabin crew were nice enough, but could have treated us a little better seems as we had been delayed and the take-off was awful!! In the flight we had our meal, which was good, but nothing special! I don't know what it was, so don't bother asking...

Landing in Dalaman was excellent! I was amazed how soft our pilot did land the plane, but that doesn't excuse all the other problems! We were then in Dalaman Airport for 1 hour 15 minutes, insted of the scheduled 40 minutes, apparently due to 'technical reasons'! That's like a child going up to his teacher and saying he hasn't got his homework because the dog ate it! In other words the most common excuse in the World! Taking off was once again awful, the pilot needs to go back into training if you ask me!, then we landed in Ercan approximately 1 hour later, reasonably soft this time but I did feel a bit of a bump!

I never imagined myself being so relieved to get off a plane as I was at Ercan, I REALLY wasn't looking forward to my flight home!

I was right... I wasn't looking forward to it! We took off from Ercan, landed in Antalya, landing and departing both of a high standard, no delays!! I was amazed and this was kind of making me begin to forgive them for their mistakes, but I had thought too soon! We were taken off the aircraft at Atalya Airport because ours had occured a techinical fault (again!!).

This wasn't explained to us in a very impressive manner, but I was by this time used to this so just took the fact that another aircraft was being sent within 3 hours! This was making me a little mad at the company, but there was nothing I could do at the time, so I just thought the best thing to do was stay calm!
5 hours later! YES... FIVE HOURS LATER!! We were told that the flight had been cancelled! We weren't put in a hotel for the evening, but were compensated with vouchers to use at t
he airport until the morning! After around 12-13 hours at Antalya, we boarded our flight and headed back to London Heathrow! The wrong airport, but I didn't care, as long as I was home it didn't really matter!

When we arrived at Heathrow we were greeted with a formal letter from KTHY, and were offered a refund, or a free flight in the future!!! I'm sure you can guess which option I took?

Next time I go to Cyprus it will NOT be flying with KTHY. We shall fly to Larnaca with a charter airliner, and then my friends mum will pick us up from the airport! That's how desperate we are, she will drive around 2-4 hours in each direction just because KTHY are such a dispicable company!

If you're flying with KTHY soon I would HIGHLY recommend you change your arrangements and get on a charter flight! DO NOT FLY KTHY... PLEASE TAKE ME ADVICE!!!

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