MEHMET AKSEL
You can talk to my wife, you can talk to my daughters, you can talk to my friends or people who know me well.
Ask anyone who has crossed paths with me, and they would describe me as someone who is naturally curious and always inclined to challenge ridiculous rules and attitudes.
Someone who questions, opposes, and rebels a lot…
In 1986, during the Turkish Equestrian Championship in Ankara, despite being the Turkish champion, I got off my horse in the ‘forbidden area’ to protest the referee’s decision and deliberately got myself expelled from the competition.
To be honest, I have always been a supporter of rules, permissions and stances, as long as they are meaningful, so that they are useful.
The whole of last week including the weekend was so busy and tiring that I genuinely needed a real vacation.
The time-out plan I had in mind was to finish my few remaining errands earlier this week and to be in Lisbon towards the end of the week with my wife and daughters.
We had given my passport to the Russian consulate last week for a visa, because I had to be in Moscow earlier this week. For now, my Russian visas are always for one month at a time, so I have to apply for a new visa every time.
As I said earlier, the weekend was very busy, and I thought I’d power through with the errands on Monday and Tuesday, to be able to unite with my family on Wednesday.
When I got home on Sunday, I packed my suitcase, and realized that I didn’t have my passport; I remembered that it was at the consulate. I called but it wasn’t ready yet. I kindly asked to see when it would be ready but they said the earliest I could pick it up was Tuesday afternoon.
I said it was my bad, and changed my tickets. I found a 20:35 flight on Tuesday evening so that I could spend all of Wednesday working and finally make it to my family reunion and time-out despite it being two days late.
It turned out that there weren’t any direct flights from Moscow to Lisbon on the day I intended to return, which meant that I had to do a stopover, but the wait time is over three hours and etc. It is what it is, and I said so be it.
I spent Monday and Tuesday at the office and found myself at the airport on Tuesday evening, at exactly 18:30. My flight is at 20:35.
I took a look at my passport, which was handed to me on the way to the airport, only to realize that my Russian visa starts the following day.
As the saying goes, anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
I immediately called my partner in Russia and plead him to ask someone in charge about the situation (thankfully he was also the person who sorted out my visas).
After 15 minutes, he told me that they had spoken to both the travel agency and Turkish Airlines, who had said, “It would not be a problem”, since the plane would only land at the airport at 23:20, and by the time I reached customs, it would already be the next day.
We joked with Zeynep that if things were to move faster than expected, I would go to the toilet for five minutes.
I reached the gate and was once again welcomed by Turkish Ground Services (TGS) and that despotic facial expression. (Like Murat Sevinç’s says, I’m leaving a link to my article on rhetoric).
“You cannot board the plane.”
A mindset that is focused on me not going as opposed to making an effort to aid me on my journey.
Supposedly, the team on the other side told them that if I boarded the plane, Turkish Airlines would be fined 10 thousand Turkish Liras (I have no idea how the exchange rate works to make it such a round number).
Who is this other team, and what kind of a mentality is this? There isn’t a drop of empathy left in their veins; I am lost for words.
By the way, the screen was showing that our flight is delayed… There we are, it will be Wednesday when the plane indeed lands.
As if anyone cared to listen.
“The gate is closed, take the flight at 2:00,” said the gentleman at TGS, proudly.
I am writing these lines on the Lisbon flight I boarded eight hours after this event.
I gave myself a holiday.
All the energy I had for getting work done is drained, neither do I have any joy left in me. Why go to Moscow or anywhere else for that matter. One would say, to hell with it, I want to shout “Heeeeeelp” from the top of my lungs.
Would the country weep if I were to arrive Moscow half an hour early?
Am I coming in illegally? Am I cheating anyone of his or her rights?
You are on the highway doing 120 – 140 kilometers per hour, and you see a sign that says 100, you go another 200 meters, a second sign says 80, then another 200 meters and the sign says 60.
These signs do not mean that you should be blindly obeying these speed limits at these particular points; these signs are placed in that order to tell you that you need to slow down. The message is, ‘There’s a problem ahead, slow down.’
Why does Russia require visas from Turks?
They are essentially saying, you can come to my country if you meet so and so conditions, right?
You obviously gave me a visa; what would change if I entered the country 10 minutes earlier? It’s not like I am arriving 10 days earlier.
Am I abusing the rights offered by the visa given to me or am I trying to enter a whole day before?
I’m asking whomever it was that didn’t let me get on the plane yesterday, and cost me half the price of my ticket in addition to two days of work…
– If TGS is telling the truth, what harm could I do to Russia by entering five minutes early?
– If TGS is being officious, I wonder what the TGS officer gained in return by turning me away from that flight’s gate.
– And I wonder who the ‘other team’ was.
I am trying to make sense of this whole debacle…
But you know what, it has nothing to do with being Turkish, Russian, German or English?
This only has to do with humanity, and unfortunately we are constantly moving farther away from humanity.
My recommendation:
For TGS, who I regularly have problems with and that I am sure others (many of whom are ‘frequent flyers’ I’m sure) also experience, to become more understanding, problem-solving, able to take initiative to a certain extent and create solutions (or at least make an effort) for passengers who have visas or residence permits like me, namely, passengers who have at least passed certain steps, and if not to prepare a service improvement program to become a team that can offer solutions or at least better explanations regarding regulations.
If it was up to me:
If I were this Turkish Ground Services, and if the passenger could not be boarded, I would say, “Sir, you have been provided with the wrong information. First of all, we apologize for this, and if you allow us, we would like to host you in the waiting room for four hours until the next flight and send you on the night flight.”
– Having ‘Services’ in one’s title doesn’t make it a service by default – to become a service one has to internalize it first.
– These things do not magically happen by giving out elite cards, they happen by providing help, offering provisions.
My father had saying about succession, about rising up the ranks in life and in one’s occupation, which would be quite appropriate for the gentleman at TGS, but let me keep that to myself for now.