Big vacation for Tulin this year. She flew out to Turkey to visit her dad's family and was meeting Mark in Istanbul so they could fly the final leg of the trip together. But this turned out to be more difficult than we anticipated.
Tulin was flying from LA to Chicago through Madrid to Istanbul. Mark was going from Tampa to NY though Paris to Istanbul. They were to land within 30 minutes of each other and meet at the Turkish Airline counter where they would check in for their last leg to Izmir get to Mark's family.
Mark's flight to NY was severely delayed due to weather, so he missed all of his international connections and would arrive 7 hours late, at midnight. He called me in a panic about how to let Tulin know. All I could think of was Tulin standing in Istanbul Airport, quite excited to be on this adventure with her dad, and he doesnt show up even though his flights did. And that no one could tell her what happened. Thus began my 3 hours of international calls between the evening and early morning hours.
Without going into great details, which I can easily do, the highlights are: I called Delta, Istanbul Airport, Turkish Airlines, American Express. Delta gave me the Istanbul Airport number and said good luck. The Airport kept sending me to odd offices (lost and found, reservations, parking) instead of to a paging office. Note that language was clearly an issue.
Turkish Airlines helped me change the connecting flights so that Tulin and Mark had tickets on the 7am flight the next day. This made me sure Tulin wouldnt be trying to fly out herself when she couldnt find her dad. But they could not assure me that they would pass the information to Tulin that her dad wasn't coming in until midnight.
I called American Express, their global assist number is just for things like this. So I was sure they could help, and they were quite sure they could as well. Their idea was to page tulin before she got to customs. The desk she would go to for the call was staffed by a woman who spoke good english, understood the issue and the task and was willing to help. And, Amex would provide a toll free number for Tulin to call me. This sounded good. But I still wasnt comfortable that I had covered all the bases.
I called Turkish Airlines again and asked to speak to the manager. I told him the story and that I was dependent upon him and his people to make sure this girl knew that her dad was coming, but 7 hours late. I pleaded with him and spoke as if she were his daughter, waiting for him without knowing where he was. He finally said Ok, that he would try to get her the message.
At this point, I figured I had done all that I could. Now I had to wait for her to land in Istanbul.
An hour after she landed, no calls. two hours, no calls. I contacted AmEx and they said they'd not heard from Tulin. Almost three hours after she landed I get her call!
She's crying and I'm crying - both with relief. She had wondered where her dad was, but proceeded to the Turkish Airlines counter to check in. They told her she had no ticket. Not that the ticket had been changed! When she asked about her dad's ticket, she got the same answer. Confused, she walked away to think about what to do. Her emotions were starting to run high as she returned and demanded to talk with the manager. She told him she and her dad had tickets and he needed to find them. They checked the rest of that day's flights - no tickets. Then she said to check for the next day. He did and said - I have a message for you! Your ticket is now 7am and your dad will be coming in at midnight. Call Kathy.
After that, Tulin was quite fine. She changed her clothes and got comfortable for the long wait (5 more hours). She sat in a cafe near where her dad would arrive and that is where they found each other at midnight - when they both called me to say everything was good.
WHEW!!!
What happened with the seemingly good idea by Amex? The paging system is so bad at Istanbul airport that Tulin couldnt understand anything they were saying. I did let Amex know what happened - and they were very interested to 'close' the incident. They are reviewing their paging idea for airports where this is not a good option.
