Turkish Airlines flight delay compensation

Turkish Airlines owes compensation under Türkiye's SHY-Passenger regulation, and under EU261 as well for any flight that departs an EU airport. The bands run €250, €400 and €600 according to distance flown. Turkish Airlines asks for claims to be submitted within one year of the disruption.

What Turkish Airlines owes, by distance

When it applies: Arrival 3+ hours late, cancellation notified less than 14 days ahead, or denied boarding. The figures come from SHY-Passenger (Turkish civil aviation passenger rights regulation) and are per passenger, including children on their own ticket.

How to claim, in four steps

1. Work out what Turkish Airlines owes. Enter the route, the date and how late you arrived. A flight from Istanbul is often covered by two statutes at once, and the calculator shows which of them pays more.
2. Write the demand. The letter is dated, cites SHY-Passenger (Turkish civil aviation passenger rights regulation) by article, and is addressed to Türk Hava Yolları A.O.. Nothing you type leaves your browser.
3. Send it to Turkish Airlines. Use “Customer relations feedback form” below, and keep a copy of what you submitted. A claim that exists only in a phone call cannot be proved afterwards.
4. Escalate to Türkiye's Directorate General of Civil Aviation. If Turkish Airlines refuses or says nothing, the calculator writes the chaser and then the escalation letter, naming that regulator and citing the article the airline ignored.

Where to send it — Turkish Airlines's own claim pages

• Customer relations feedback form
• How do I make a claim?
• Passenger rights — legal notice

Turkish Airlines states that a compensation claim must be made within one year of the disruption. A flight departing an EU airport also falls under EU261 whoever operates it, so a TK flight out of Frankfurt is covered twice over.

The refusals Turkish Airlines sends, and what answers them

Each of these has a settled answer in case law — the the SHY-Passenger Regulation page sets out the judgments, names the cases, and quotes what the airline has to prove instead.

Other things that go wrong on a Turkish Airlines flight

• When the airline blames a technical fault — when Turkish Airlines blames a technical fault
• “Extraordinary circumstances” — what actually counts — when Turkish Airlines calls it weather or “extraordinary”
• Should you use a claim company? — when Turkish Airlines ignores you — and why you still do not need a claim company
• You missed your connection — a missed connection on a Turkish Airlines itinerary
• Denied boarding and overbooking — being bumped from an overbooked flight by Turkish Airlines
• They moved you to a lower class — being moved to a lower class by Turkish Airlines
• Your bag did not arrive — a bag Turkish Airlines delayed or lost
• Stuck at the airport: what the airline owes you now — meals and a hotel while Turkish Airlines leaves you waiting

Questions

Open the calculator with Turkish Airlines selected →

Claiming from Turkish Airlines in practice

Which band your route falls into, from IST

Distance decides the amount, and it is measured as the great-circle distance between the two airports — not the miles flown. These are real distances from Turkish Airlines's main base, so you can see where the thresholds sit before you measure your own route.

If Turkish Airlines refuses or says nothing

The regulator for Turkish Airlines is Türkiye's Directorate General of Civil Aviation (SHGM) (shgm.gov.tr). Take the claim there once the airline has had its chance to answer and has either refused or gone silent — bring the dated letter, the airline's reply, and your booking reference. Stage 3 of the calculator writes the escalation letter that names this body.

How long you have: Turkish Airlines asks for claims within one year. Where EU261 also applies, the departure country's own limitation period governs that claim.

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