This is strictly a review for the ground crew and desk agents fro Turkish Airlines at MUC. We ran the gauntlet here at an unfortunate time (05:00h) two days ago, and it was not pleasant.
Traveling on an international Business Class itinerary from MUC to TAV to SFO, we had to check in and check bags at least two hours prior to our 7:30am flight. Showing up at 5:15am, we rolled up to the business class line. The lady working there was definitely from the B team. Maybe the C team. Not what I'm used to while traveling on an insanely expensive ticket and using premium class lines. She was outright rude and unhelpful to the guy at the counter ahead of us while trying to (across language barriers) explain that his bags were overweight. With us, less rudeness, but extreme inefficiency. We simply had two bags to check and boarding passes to print. I had checked in online. She failed to tag our bags priority, which resulted in seriously insane bag delays the rest of the way on the line in SF (customs) and PDX (final destination). Oh wah - first-class problems, right? Well, priority bag handling is something you pay all that extra cash for when you buy biz class.
We had to wait forever for their ticket counter security to clear our bags, while we watched numerous people come up, get bags checked and ticketed, and move on, all from the non-business-class line. She insisted in running our bags through oversize security when they're not even as big as the large size roller bags. Guess we should have just gone to the non biz class line? No apologies, no explanations, just gruff attitude and failure to get the basic details done. I travel a lot, and checking two bags/getting boarding passes is not a tough task to accomplish.
Look, nobody is happy at 5:15am, but when that's your shift, wake up, get to work, and do your damn job. Even a little customer service goes a long way. And frankly, I wasn't even that bothered with it at the time, but as I waited interminably for my luggage in SF and PDX, I got more and more annoyed that she couldn't even get the basic tagging right. It added much clarity to my feelings about my whole situation here.
I should add that our service aboard both flights from MUC to TAV and TAV to SFO was impeccable, and that Turkish business class in general is a 5-star experience. If they send their ticket agents to the same customer service school that their attendants go to, that would solve it. read more