I hardly slept and was ready to leave at 5.00am!! David ran me to the airport and waited until I confirmed yes there was a flight at 10.30am, Antalya and Stansted. Thank you David!
I went to the check in desks and nobody had a clue what was going on. About six vacant check in desks and no one had a clue which ones would be used, so people queued at all the check in desks. What was to follow was not pleasant and as we all queued more and more people joined the ends of the queues. A cheer went up at 8.30am when three check in clerks appeared and took their seats. How lucky was I that I was in one of the three. Then the other people all crammed to get in the three queues. I hasten to add that at no time did they put up on the check in boards where the flight was going to or any information whatsoever. It was bedlam. I would have been about the third person in our queue to get a ticket BUT a group of TC’s pushed in, in front of us, blocking the desk and one even straddled the scales. Police were there but were doing nothing, just chatting to the ones that had pushed in. Then more cases were being passed to the people who had pushed in. I was convinced that they were checking in their entire village. I did voice my opinions to them but of course it fell on deaf ears. A dear grey haired old lady in the next queue was then being shouted at by a TC saying she had pushed in and other Brits were shouting back in her defence. I don’t think she even had the strength to queue jump. I used all my tactics learnt from queueing with TC’s at the old Ercan airport when it was every man for himself. It certainly was not a pleasant experience. The couple in front of me had a trolley and when they took their cases off it, I wedged it beside me so that no more TC’s could queue jump. What an appalling display to all the tourists trying to get a ticket home.
When I reached the desk, she didn’t even look at my reservation, I tyhink it was just getting ‘bums on seats’. I was one of the lucky ones but I heard there were about 60 people who didn’t get on. What a total shambles it was. The flight was OK and the air hostesses were very pleasant.
Of course on arriving at Stansted my hire car had been booked for Thursday, so during the flight Mal called Easycar to arrange it for two days early. They booked through Budget who didn’t have it available for the first two days, so I ended up with a Hertz car which has to be returned to the airport on Thursday and swapped for a Budget car.
I arrived at the caravan, totally shattered. A nightmare of a day but at least I am back for my son’s wedding!
The government have seriously let down so many people, knowing this would happen and still taking bookings for CTA. They are NOT making information available and no one knows what the hell is happening. Again I must thank Sheniz from Ankara Travel or I may have missed my sons wedding. Customers who supported the country’s airline have now been abandoned. It makes me wonder if the same will happen to people’s title deeds. They seem not to care a jot. Shameful.