This goes out to the women who fly internationally. Do not fly Turkish Airlines. On a recent trip I was flying on Turkish because of the price. On the flight home from Istanbul to Chicago I dozed off on takeoff. I was woken by an extremely gross smell. Upon opening my eyes there was a pair of naked feet in front of me up against my closed tray table. I was in an aisle seat, middle section, and the man sitting on the other aisle seat had taken off his shoes and socks, put down the middle tray table, had his legs on the table and his bare feet in front of me. I asked him to put his feet down, nicely, and he just looked at me. I assumed he didn't speak English so I pointed at his feet and then the floor. Here's what happened next:
He raised his hand as if to hit me. I jumped out of my seat, reached over and pressed the call button. A flight attendant came and I showed her the situation and told her he had threatened me. She didn't see the "problem ", her word, and told me he had a right to do it. She then asked the man in Turkish, I assume, to put his feet down. He ignored her. Another flight attendant came over and I again explained what happened and that I was feeling sick and nauseated. They told me they could not reseat the man and that different airlines have different rules. Finally, a male flight attendant came over and talked to the man. The man put his feet down and the flight attendant proudly informed me he got the man to put his socks back on, problem solved.
As the flight was less than full I asked if I could move. They said no problem. I asked if I could move to business and they lied and said it was full. We were just behind business and when the curtain was open it was obvious it wasn't full. They could have just said no they didn't have to lie.
I gathered most of my stuff and found an aisle seat a couple of rows back. At this point I felt like I was going to vomit and went to the toilet. I was in there for over 20 minutes retching. At one point a flight attendant knocked and asked if I was okay. I said no, she walked away. When I got out of the toilet I went to retrieve a couple of items I hadn't moved. One of the flight attendants moved what I had left in my original seat to my new seat. 1 or 2 small things were missing, I don't care.
The flight attendants reiterated to me the man was in the right, they had informed the pilot and he agreed. I filed a complaint with Turkish on their website. They acknowledged receipt and said they would get back to me within 14 days. That was about 3 weeks ago.
My bottom line is this. I know there are cultural differences. But all the flight attendants deferred to the man. The female flight attendants would not speak to him, with the one exception, only the male flight attendant. The bare stinky feet were bad enough but they stuck up for the man for physically threatening me. I shudder to think what could have happened if he had actually attacked me. read more