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Ali Shajari arrived five hours early for his Toronto-bound flight out of Istanbul Airport, one of the busiest in the world.Ìý

The computer security student had booked a round-trip ticket for nearly $1,700 with Turkish Airlines six months earlier to visit family during his summer holiday. But now, he was eager to get back to Canada to prepare for the start of his second year at York University.Ìý

When Shajari, 24, got to the gate and handed the attendant his boarding pass, she asked him to step aside and wait. Everyone behind him boarded. And then Shajari was told there were no seats left on the plane.Ìý

He spent the next two hours being directed to different desks looking for answers about why he had been bumped and what had become of his checked luggage.

“At one point,” he says, “I actually had to get out of the airport, go through security again and go to the airline’s sales office on a different floor. They told me they have a right to oversell seats on the plane.”

At the time, Shajari didn’t know that Canada’s Air Passenger Protection Regulations entitles travellers to a minimum of $900 for delays within an airline’s control.

He was more concerned with catching the next flight and spent another 45 minutes pleading his case.Ìý

“They were very reluctant to give me a ticket for the same day and told me that they had to bump another passenger off to get me on the flight back,” he says.

When Shajari asked about compensation, he says the agent told him none was owed. After Shajari saidÌýthat “he was pretty sure there was a rule about this,” the agent told him he would be able to collect 400 Euros at the Turkish Airlines office in Pearson Airport.

Shajari boarded the plane that evening, roughly 15 hours after he first arrived at Istanbul Airport.Ìý

The problem: Reimbursement runaround

When Shajari landed in Toronto, he set out to find the Turkish Airlines office, only to learn there wasn’t one.

He called the airline and was directed to go online and “make a ticket” to file his complaint through the airline’s website.Ìý

For more than two months, he created multiple tickets. And then he got an email in which the airline admitted to overbooking and offered him an apology and refund cheque for 400 Euros, but with a confusing twist.

“In order to compensate for your grievance,” the Turkish Airlines’ letter stated, “your refund check (sic) must be sent to the T.R. Republic ofÌýTürkiye on the date you purchased the ticket.”

“Each time I ask for clarification, I must create a new ticket on their website, which takes about three weeks to receive a response,” Shajari explained.

He filed a formal complaint with the Canadian Transportation Agency, a quasi-judicial federal tribunal based in Quebec that handles airline, railway and marine-related disputes involving fares, rates and charges.

He says the agency advised it might take 18 months to reach a resolution.

Shajari says he contacted the pc28¹ÙÍøStar because he hopes his “story could serve as a call for greater accountability.”

“It’s painfully clear that Turkish Airlines is using this delay to deter passengers like me from pursuing the compensation we deserve, hoping that we’ll simply give up,” he wrote in an email.

“This experience has been exhausting, financially draining, and deeply disheartening. It is outrageous that airlines operating in Canada can abuse customer rights in such a way, seemingly indifferent to our regulatory protections.”

Star helps: The claim option

I contacted the airline on Shajari’s behalf.

I also reached out to Air Passenger Rights, a Canadian non-profit organization thatÌýworks to educateÌýtravellers on the law and advocates to government and industry on their behalf.

Gabor Lukacs, the group’s founder, explained that in 2019, the federal Liberal government introduced new travel regulations that he believes make it more difficult for airline passengers to get compensation. Under the new rules “denial of boarding” is defined so narrowly, he says, that most cases do not meet the criteria for payment.

Lukacs says in the face of so much red tape a traveller’s quickest route to compensation is filing a claim against the company in small claims court.Ìý

“They tend to get a little bit more serious when they realize they have to get a lawyer involved.”

The resolution: Compensation, finally

Shajari didn’t have to go that route.

Two weeks after the Star contacted Turkish Airlines on his behalf, the company reached out to him saying it had “re-investigated” his complaint and concluded that it owed him $900.Ìý

“I’m sure that it was because of you that they finally did the right thing,” Shajari wrote in an email to me. “I can’t thank you enough. I’m a student and as you can imagine this makes a huge difference for me.”

His credit card statement showed the refund was $31 short of what the airline had promised.Ìý

I emailed Turkish Airlines, again, to see if the company could explain why Shajari hadn’t received the full amount.Ìý

The next day, the airline emailed Shajari and pledged to make him whole: “With hopes that we can offer you flawless service on your subsequent travels, we are respectfully yours.”

The airline promised the outstanding $31 will land in his bank account within the next few days.Ìý