Turkish Airlines records NZ-bound passenger as 'no-show' after failing to issue boarding passes at gate

A German woman returning home to New Zealand was left stranded in Istanbul after Turkish Airlines staff failed to issue her connecting tickets, then recorded her as a “no-show” when she couldn’t board at the gate. 

Antje Foster was returning to Auckland on June 26 after spending five weeks in Germany seeing family and friends. 

She had flown with Jetstar from Auckland to Melbourne, then to her hometown of Bremen with Turkish Airlines via Istanbul without issue. 

She was set to take the same route home, but, while checking in for her return flights at Bremen Airport, Foster said an airline employee questioned whether she had an Australian visa for her Melbourne stopover. 

“I was confused, and I said to him, ‘Why Australia? I’m on a long-haul flight and I’m going to Auckland’,” she told the Herald. 

“I’ve been in New Zealand for 11-and-a-half years. Every year I try to go home, so it’s not my first rodeo flying that sort of route.” 

The employee subsequently told Foster she didn’t need to collect her luggage in Australia and issued her boarding pass for Istanbul, instructing her to collect the remaining two at her connecting gate. 

“I was super relaxed,” Foster said. 

“Everything was fine. I said goodbye to my family. We had a little coffee before I popped into the plane.” 

Antje Foster says she was left stranded in Istanbul after Turkish Airlines staff failed to issue her connecting tickets. 

After arriving in Istanbul, Foster said she went to the gate early, but it was empty. 

With an hour and a half to spare, she took a stroll before finding another staff member, telling them her two remaining boarding passes still needed to be printed. 

“He was checking his computer, didn’t really speak to me, just said this was weird. 

“Then he said to me, ‘Okay, no worries, just come back when we call everybody for boarding’ ... His colleague would print me out the tickets. 

“I didn’t think much of it. Killed my time. I had another 19 or 20-hour flight, so I got changed up before boarding, had my wander around, got freshened up to sleep.” 

Foster then joined the queue at the gate and waited her turn. 

She said she explained her situation to the employees before spending about 20 minutes answering questions about her passport, visa, luggage and itinerary. 

Suddenly, the employee allegedly told her: “By the way, your doors are now closed and everyone is gone inside. You can’t take that flight.” 

Turkish Airlines has confirmed it is reviewing Foster's ordeal. Photo / Keven Hackert, Unsplash 

“I just looked at him like, ‘What do you mean? I’m standing right here’. 

“He guided me to this care desk, and then said something to them in Turkish and told me to wait.” 

After rehashing her story and fielding more questions about her visa, Foster said she found a female employee to ask for guidance. 

“She listened to me, looking quite concerned. 

“She’s like, ‘That doesn’t sound right. I’m going to go over and speak to those guys’, and I said, ‘Well, those are the guys I just spoke to and they just seem to handle me quite disrespectfully’. 

“She went over and spoke to them anyway, came back and just ignored me from there.” 

Foster said she was offered no accommodation, food or alternative route home by the care team and contacted her partner in Auckland, who asked their travel agent to find an alternative flight home. 

She later learned Turkish Airlines had recorded her as a “no-show”, indicating she never arrived at the gate in the first place. 

While staff soon offered her replacement flights to Melbourne or Bremen, Foster had to wait two days or 13 hours, respectively. 

Finding a return flight with Emirates for $2695.83, she had to leave the departure lounge, locate her missing luggage, check in again and make it to the gate in the hour before it was due to take off. 

In subsequent correspondence with Foster, Turkish Airlines said an investigation determined a “system malfunction in Bremen” meant her boarding pass could not be issued, and that employees had informed her of the situation on the day. 

Foster disputes that, saying she was repeatedly given reassurances and instructions on how to proceed with her journey in Istanbul. 

Turkish Airlines had since offered a refund for the unused portion of her journey, but Foster said the wider issue – including being compensated for the hastily booked Emirates flight – was still unresolved. 

“At some stage I just gave up. I was thinking, ‘Okay, I’ve got to catch this other flight’,” she said. 

“They then said it’s basically your choice that you chose to fly out. 

“I didn’t feel safe to stay in Turkey, and I didn’t have an offer either. Like, what am I supposed to do?” 

Following multiple requests for comment, Turkish Airlines told the Herald it had re-escalated the matter to its customer relations team to review Foster’s ordeal. 

“The investigation is ongoing, and our Customer Relations team is conducting a thorough review of the circumstances, including obtaining information from all relevant Operations teams involved at each station,” a spokesperson said. 

“As the investigation is currently in progress, we would prefer not to provide any preliminary conclusions until all relevant information has been reviewed and the matter has been fully assessed.”