"This is not the first time the Istanbul airline has made, to use a poker term, a 'blind' with its purchasable tickets. It tries, doesn't fill up and sends the reservations back to the sender, often leaving them a few days to divert to another flight."
This we wrote last October 7 about the cancellation of flights to Mombasa by Turkish Airlines. It was not the first time, precisely, and it was the last time we trusted their announcements, complete with an advertising campaign, of reopening of the direct Istanbul-Mombasa route and especially of the supposedly very convenient connection to a dozen Italian airports from which it is not normally easy to take off to Kenya, let alone to the destinations closest to those most desired by our countrymen.
A communication from the company cites no license from KCA causrd cancellations directly to those who had purchased tickets and notifications to travel agents, this time too comes the news of the cancellation of the Istanbul-Mombasa flight and consequently of all connections to Italy.
We sincerely, while hoping for the opposite, expected it. We are not fans of "we told you so," indeed often when we are less optimistic than usual we hope to be able to say "we were wrong."
In fact, however, despite the fact that it is our will and idea of information service to do so, we deliberately ignored the news that arrived just before Easter, of the upcoming, yet another reopening of the route.
We did not believe it, and even on our social pages and Facebook groups we always responded doubtfully to those who asked about the planned Turkish flight. "The prices are good" was the leitmotif of readers. Not so much a red herring as a desperate attempt to fill those flights to the brim. But it is not only the crisis that is limiting the Turkish airline, which until five to six years ago was among the best and most organized for medium- to long-haul destinations, but also the disservices and mishaps that have been created for customers: overly tight connections that left those arriving from Italy stranded, luggage that did not arrive at its destination, and rudeness of those who should have been in charge of helping. Sorry for all the travelers and readers who took us for "cassandras" and for those who trusted us. For many, the solution put forward is to repair on Nairobi, a route that Turkish Airlines should (conditional on) maintain. But to ask for a refund instead of re-routing to another destination is legitimate.