Dear Transavia Authorities,
My name is Oğuz Yarımtepe and with my wife we were one of the passengers of the flight HV6583 that is from Amsterdam to Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen airport. Unfortunatelly we had a bad travel and i want some answers about our trip, thats why i am writing this letter to you.
Our flight took off on time from Amstertdam on 8th of August. When we reached to the Istanbul, the plane started to land, we were expecting to be on the land in a few minutes but it was a sudden movement that the pilot moved the plane up in a sudden decision, after tilting the plane first left and then right. There were some screams during this action. People were afraid. When we were at a certain altitude, the pilot explained that the air conditions were not good enough at Sabiha Gökçen Airport and he would be landing to another airport suitable. We were expecting somewhere in Turkey, Atatürk Airport or Çorlu, or even Izmir or Ankara. We landed at Bulgaria, Burgas Airport. It was that time our problems started.
Since it was an unplanned landing, we first waited on plane till we enter to the airport. After we entered to the airport, we learned that we are not able to move the airport because of some documentary issues. We never learned why we landed Burgas Airport. We got some food after the decision of sending us to Istanbul via buses. I don’t know the time but the food delivery occured when the people asked about it. People tried to call their families, as soon as we landed but luckly, Bulgaria was out of coveredge of some telecommunication networks, like the one i used, Vodafone. There was no free Internet on the airport, we had to ask each others about using the phone. I would like to learn the reason of chosing the Burgas Airport for landing. It was clear that they were not expecting us, except from information desk, none were able to speak English, well.
We are transfered to the busses around 17.00pm. Our driver was unable to speak neither Dutch nor English, so we were not sure about how long it will take from Burgas to Istanbul. Some says 3 hours, driver said 6 hours with its fingers. The bus was not a comfortable one. No air conditioning, no suspension. Why did you send us to Istanbul via buses? I know that some of us asked for buying their own flight tickets to Istanbul, but it is not allowed. Some asked about renting car, that is also not allowed. Do you know the time we reached at Sabiha Gökçen Airport? Did you check whether we arrived safely?
It was around 4.00 in the morning when we left the bus at Sabiha Gökçen Airport. Did you think about, how we will reach our homes or destinations from Sabiha at 4 in the mornig in Istanbul? Some people missed their next flights, some like me had to get on a bus to go to their homes, some changed their car travel plans and tried to find a place to sleep, either a hotel or asked help from their relatives. It was around 8 when i was at Bursa. I had got up 5.00 in the mornig, so you made us travel 24 hours. I think you owe us “our lost time”. I lost my time on buses. We could be somewhere in Turkey in 30 minutes via plane and could reach our destinations earlier. How will you cover our losses? I returned holiday and had to sleep till evening on Saturday.
Everyone on the bus with me said that they will not use Transavia anymore. I am sure the rest of the people are thinking in the same way. So you lost around 100 customers * their relatives, friends * the people they reached online.
I don’t want to blame anyone, but i think we deserve some explanations. I will be happy if you reply this mail. I will be sharing this letter with the ones that are on the same bus with me.
Regards.
Oğuz Yarımtepe
oguzyarimtepe at gmail.com
http://about.me/oguzy
Dear Oguz,
First of all thnx for writing this letter. We where also in this plane and we had the same feelings and thougts as written in your letter.
We are supporting you with this letter and we will also write a letter to transavia. We where very happy with the pilot and the stewardess, but very mad about the decisions wich transavia made.
It was a complete desaster with the backup plan of transavia in burgas. This is not the service we had expected expected.
We hope that other people in the plane had the same feeling an thougts.
Enjou the rest of your holiday en take care.
Greetz,
Serkan Uzulmez & Mumune Teker
Beste Oguz,
Omdat ik mij in het Nederlands beter kan verwoorden, schrijf ik mijn reactie in het Nederlands.
Allereerst bedankt voor jouw duidelijke brief. Ik sluit mij compleet aan jouw bevindingen, ervaringen en jouw vragen. Ik verwacht van Transavia antwoord op al onze vragen! Ik ben nog steeds niet over de shock heen, en de ellende dat wij daarna meegemaakt hebben! Ik ga ook transavia persoonlijk benaderen.
Vriendelijke groeten
Degerli Oguz bey,
Yorumumu ilk olarak hollandacada yazdim, kendimi daha iyi ifade edebilecegim icin. Yazdiklarim sunlardi: size tamamen katiliyorum. Berbat bir yolculuk gecirdik. Transavia’dan butun sorular icin bende cevap bekliyorum! Hala ÅŸok’u ve gecirdigimiz berbat yolculugu ustumden atmis degilim! Ve bende ozel olarakta transavia’ya ulasip sikayetimi bildirecegim.
Hoscakalin
Here is a reply i got from Transavia Holland Facebook site:
https://www.facebook.com/transavianederland/posts/10153104521603975?comment_id=10153104626443975&offset=0&total_comments=2¬if_t=share_comment
Below is what thet wrote:
Thanks for sharing your experience this way. We truly regret the whole situation regarding flight HV 6583. If you want, I can forward this post to our customer care department. They will contact you about the situation to see if we can do something for you.
Your question regarding the choice of Bourgas is easy to explain. It’s simply the closest airport to Istanbul where we are allowed to land. That’s why this is the airport to go to in case of bad weather conditions in Istanbul. If the plane would be able land safely, trust me, it would have landed. The decision to go to Bourgas wasn’t planned and it needed last minute planning. I’m very sorry to hear about the lack of information during this situation.
So, if you would like to make an official complaint, please send me your booking number, phone number and email address in a private message. This way I can forward your letter.
***********************
So i contacted them in private also.
Dear Oguz,
Thank you for writing this letter. I really appreciate the effort and hereby want to give my support. I also was on this flight HV6583 from Amsterdam to Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen airport, which took off from Amsterdam on 8th of August. I am still in shock at what happened and the after care made things only worse. A lot of people are still in shock and the service of Transavia after this whole incident was the worst! Furthermore, I think a lot of people will agree on this that we nearly escaped the plane from crashing. At one point including myself, a lot of people thought that they were not going to make it, as the plane was out of control. I will start my own complaint procedure against Transavia and will write my story on social media.
Regards,
Ali Koseoglu
Here is the latest reply i got from Customer Care:
Dear Mr Yarimtepe,
In your letter, you ask for answers to your questions in regard to the delay of flight HV6583 from Amsterdam to Istanbul on August 8, 2014. You write that it was unclear why your flight has landed on Burgas instead of Istanbul, and you want to know why you are brought to Istanbul by bus.
Unfortunately, your flight was delayed. You write that you travelled for 24 hours. I understand that this delay was inconvenient for you. At transavia.com we make every effort to transport you to your destination on time. I would hereby like to explain why your flight diverted to Burgas. Your flight is delayed due to adverse weather conditions in Istanbul. When your flight approaches Istanbul the crew is confronted with a windshear warning. Windshear is a sudden change of the direction and speed of the wind. This is disadvantuous to the safety of flight operations. Therefore the procedure is to terminate the landing approach. As a consequence your flight diverted to Burgas. From Burgas you were brought to Istanbul by bus. Unfortunately, we were unable to avoid this delay. The adverse weather conditions your flight was confronted with are a case of “extraordinary circumstances that could not be avoided even if all reasonable measures had been takenâ€. You are therefore not entitled to any compensation.
We are sorry to hear that you felt as though your safety was in jeopardy. We can assure you that this was by no means the case. In the case of adverse weather conditions, landing at an airport depends on a number of different standards and conditions. If it appears as though the landing cannot be carried out, we fly to a different airport. Therefore you landed on Burgas and were brought to Istanbul by bus. The safety of our passengers and employees always forms the main focus here.
You state that you are not satisfied with the information and care that you received at the airport. I am really sorry to hear you did not receive any clear information regarding the delay time of your flight and the continuation of your trip by bus. Especially during a delay it is important that you are informed and cared for. We owe you an apology for that.
I thank you for the elaborate description of your experiences. I pass your response on to the responsible departments. Your feedback will help us improve the service on future flights.
I trust that this letter has provided you with the explanations you were looking for. And we regret that we are unable to help you further.
Best regards,
Mrs E. Becht
Customer Care
IK ben nıet blıj met het vlucht van, we hadden bıjna een onguluk gehad, en ın burguaz aırport 11 lang gewacht en daar na met de bus van burguaz naar sabıhagokcen gereden dat ıs ın totaal 20 uur kwıjt aan rıjzen ın plaat van 3 uurtjes en dat ıs nıet leuk, transavıa moet een lesje leren dat ıemand anders dat ook nıet mee maakt.
gezamelıjk klacht ındınnen staanwe sterker, ık steunje 100 procent.
Here is an interesting flight display of our flight: http://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/hv6583/#4048689 You can see what happened
helemaal mee eens, schandalig wat we mee maakte met de reis transavia op 08-08-2014, liever wat aan doen dan alleen maar schrijven, samen staan we sterker.
Beste allen,
Ik heb 12 dagen geleden via internet site een klachtbrief gestuurd, maar heb tot op heden geen reactie ontvangen.. Hebben jullie ook zulke ervaringen?
Groetjes,
Seyma kuzu
Dear Seyma,
I used the contact form of at Transavia web site and they returned.
Beste Oguz,
Bedankt voor je snelle reactie.
Ik heb ook de formulier op de site van Transavia ingevuld, en heb alleen een ontvangst bevestiging gekregen, waarop stond dat zij mij zo snel mogelijk zouden bereiken.. Maar helaas niets over terug gehoord..
Groetjes,
Seyma
Beste allen,
Eindelijk een reactie.:
17/09/2014 04:10 NM
Geachte mevrouw Kuzu,
Bedankt voor uw bericht. Ik vind het zeer vervelend dat u en uw vader deze situatie hebben meegemaakt. Waardoor er vertraging is ontstaan op vlucht HV6583 op 8 augustus jl. En bied u en uw vader welgemeende excuses aan voor deze vervelende situatie en het daardoor ondervonden ongemak.
Uw vlucht was vertraagd vanwege slecht weer in Istanbul. Tijdens de landing daar was er een waarschuwing voor windschering (verandering van de wind in richting en snelheid). Dit kan nadelige gevolgen hebben voor een veilige vluchtuitvoering. Daarom is de vlucht uitgeweken naar Burgas. Vanuit Burgas bent u met bussen naar de eindbestemming Istanbul gebracht. Dit is een omstandigheid waarop wij ondanks het nemen van alle redelijke maatregelen geen invloed hebben, een zogenaamde buitengewone omstandigheid. Wanneer er sprake is van een buitengewone omstandigheid, bestaat er helaas geen recht op compensatie.
Op de website van de Inspectie Leefomgeving en Transport (ILenT) vindt u meer informatie over situaties die worden aangemerkt als een buitengewone omstandigheid: http://www.ilent.nl/onderwerpen/transport/passagiersrechten/passagiersrechten_luchtvaart/vertraging_annulering_en_instapweigering/buitengewone_omstandigheden/. De ILenT is voor Nederland het orgaan dat toezicht houdt op de naleving van de regelgeving in de luchtvaart.
U geeft ook aan dat de vervolg reis oncomfortabel is verlopen. Dit spijt ons heel erg. Juist bij een vertraging is het belangrijk dat u goed opgevangen wordt. deze feedback zullen we dan ook meenemen en lering uit trekken om onze service te verbeteren.
Ik vind het nogmaals ontzettend vervelend wat er gebeurt is. En bied u nogmaals welgemeende excuses aan.
Met vriendelijke groet,
De heer Berens
Customer Care