While Turkish Airlines has been praised for voicing its decision to offer full refunds for flights cancelled due to lockdown restrictions, agents are somewhat surprised and frustrated that the airline will still impose cancellation penalties on bookings where flights were cancelled out of the system by the consultant rather than the airline, regardless of the fact that these flights did not take place.
During lockdown, Turkish Airlines initially offered passengers vouchers for future travel, rather than cash refunds, but in December, the airline announced to the trade that all tickets, where flights had been cancelled by Turkish Airlines due to lockdown restrictions, were entitled to a full refund, regardless of original fare conditions.
“We are happy to announce that, with immediate effect, the suspension of all refunds as a result of COVID-19 has been withdrawn. In accordance with our existing COVID-19 refunds policy, all tickets where flights were cancelled by Turkish Airlines due to lockdown restrictions are entitled to a full refund, regardless of the original fare conditions,” said Turkish Airlines in a December notification to the trade.
“All tickets where the flights were voluntarily cancelled by the passenger, or if the passenger was a no-show, can be refunded applying the normal fare rules or conditions. NB: Please check the history of your booking to make sure that the flights were UNed / HXed of S/I,” added the airline.
Owner of Travessentials, Bronwyn Pienaar, told Travel News that Turkish Airlines would not waive the cancellation penalty on two of her bookings, which had been due to fly out of South Africa during June 2020. This was despite the fact that these flights never took off, due to South Africa’s international travel ban.
Bronwyn says she has spoken to the Turkish Airlines representatives, but they say the original cancellation penalty will still stand, as Bronwyn cancelled these segments herself (less than a month before travel while the travel ban was in effect), rather than waiting for Turkish Airlines to UN them.
According to Bronwyn, she had taken this action as she was fearful that leaving the segments in the booking would result in her being ADMed for segment abuse should the booking reflect as a no-show.“At the time that the bookings were cancelled out of the system, refunds on Turkish Airlines were not an option. At no time did the airline indicate that an agent cancelling the segments out of the booking herself would jeopardise her client’s chance of receiving a refund,” said Bronwyn.
Referring back to a Turkish Airlines trade notification distributed in April 2020, it is clear that refunds were not offered by the airline at that point. However, the airline did suggest that agents should wait for the airline to cancel flights in the following TK tip:
“*TK tip – if the flights have not been cancelled in the reservation by Turkish Airlines, wait until closer to the time before making your final decision to cancel,” stated the airline during April.
eTravel ITC Jenny Kutlu agreed, commenting that it was ridiculous to charge clients cancellation penalties for flights that did not take off, regardless of the behind-the-scenes process of how the flight segments had been cancelled.
“They surely cannot implement this when the actual flight did not depart due to lockdown regulations. Their current rulings state that only reservations where flights where UNed by Turkish Airlines qualify for a full refund – but this was never communicated as a rule to agents and only as a tip,” said Jenny.
Spokesperson for Turkish Airlines, Louzya Garnett, responded to Travel News as follows: “TK did advise the travel trade that agents can apply for refunds through the BSPlink at the time. However, due to the high volumes received globally from agents, this option was closed and TK opened the agent GDS systems for agents to process refunds.”
Asked for more specific information about refunds for bookings that had been cancelled out of the system by a consultant, Louzya would only say: “Turkish Airlines management already advised in this regard. It is suggested that the travel trade please contact their respective
Turkish Airlines office should they have further questions with regards to refunds.”