My most absurd return travel experience ever July 2022

I wanted to finished this article for a long time. I slowly regained the strength to do so, while still being isolated in quarantine (today is finally the last day as of July 15th, 2022.

I think it is very important to warn people before traveling via Turkish Airlines to Taiwan.

It might not be much of a surprise that most public transportation is down in Europe. The lifting of COVID-19 restrictions combined with summer holidays caused to a shortage of airport human resources in most airports since they laid off most of them during lockdown times. ( related article: https://www.euronews.com/travel/2022/07/05/why-is-the-travel-chaos-affecting-europe-so-much-more-than-the-rest-of-the-world ).

Travelling in June from Taiwan to Bremen via Istanbul airport worked like a charm. I choose Bremen not because my family lives relative close to it, but also due to the fact that airport taxation is low compared to Hamburg and Hannover and most important that the federal state of Bremen (yes, it is the smallest federal state of Germany with two towns) economic senator is from the communist party of Germany (Mrs. Kristina Vogt), which means she unionise everything under the administration sun causing Bremen airport to be 100% operational since nobody got laid off and instead sent to "Kurzarbeit" (reduced working hours at home). By the way, I had an interesting talk with her, not very communist like at all, but that's a different story. Anyway, after arriving at Bremen airport after passing border passport check, you can receive your luggage within minutes after arrival.

Watching the news and getting asked by someone travelling from Taiwan to Bremen, I started preparations prior to departure one day. I tried to call the Turkish Airlines hotline in Frankfurt on the Main, but after being on hold for four hours I gave up. Then I tried to call Bremen airport service and nobody picked up the phone. Only my travel agent in Taiwan helped me to collect information to be at best 4 hours before departure and not later than 3 hours to be at the airport.

Let the boarding battle begin

Just to be on the safe site I was 4 hours 35 minutes prior departure at the airport and the queue was enormous.

Isn't Bremen supposed to be as quick and efficient as at arrival. Yes, but the passenger handling still has to be done by the airlines themselves. The airport only handles the rest. Turkish Airlines has been caught up in the economic turmoil caused by "Sultan" Erdogan who fired the central bank director and set a zero interest rate, which in return caused a free fall inflation, but since the Sultan it would be highly unislamic to have interests rates, he'd rather destroy's his entire economy ( https://www.dailysabah.com/business/economy/turkeys-inflation-soars-to-24-year-high-of-7862-in-june ) before returning to the real world. Turkish Airlines is a state-owned enterprise and pulled down by all this. The desk was occupied by Germany's Lufthansa personnel.

The queue was so long, because a lot of passengers got altered to Bremen from Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Hannover and one family even from Schiphol airport. Germany has over 3.5 million Turkish immigrants who came as labour to Germany's 70s economic miracle as workers. Different to their Italian, Spanish and other European colleagues Turkey was never allowed to join the European Union, which means if you want to receive pension funds, you simply have to stay in Germany. That's a very problematic issue since Germany is not an immigration nation, neither does the German tolerate more than one nationality, but that's a different topic.

After 112 minutes queuing it was finally my turn. I got my APRC, passport, etc. everything prepared. The lady at the desk (obvious having a Turkish immigration background) first doesn't say one word. Then she suddenly asks the service staff to put off my luggage, writes on a small piece of paper and says:

"According to the agreement between Turkish Airlines and the Taiwanese CDC you failed to fill out the form at website:https://hdhq.mohw.gov.tw/Default1?openExternalBrowser=1

If you want to catch this flight today, fill out it , queue up again and maybe you are lucky to catch this flight. No filled out and registered no boarding." I tried to negotiate first in a friendly way if I may fill out quickly and get my boarding pass, but she suddenly got very aggressive yelling and swearing in Turkish to me and asking airport police remove me immediately back to the end of the queue. I sweared back to her in low German, which for the airport police was amusing since they can understand it, but not her.

So, I had to be back in line, fill out this cumbersome website. After another 80 minutes, I pushed myself to the elite business class desk and only spoke low German to the lady at the desk and who in a low voice tone said to me:"I know she is very rude, but we are so short of employees, we have to accept any applicant. I will ask security to allow you a speed boarding directly to the plane." Only less than 30 minutes to take off. One of the customs clearance officers helped me to cut into the passport control queue asking his colleague to let me through immediately if it is not fake.

In hope there won't be any more surprises and get a smooth trip home I got into the heavy overcrowded airplane. From now on, everything in Turkish only.

Dorner Kebab, Turkish pizza and Istanbul airport - battle no. 2

A big problem with Istanbul airport or Turkish Airlines in general is the fact that they never write the boarding gate number on the boarding tickets. I have 80 minutes left to catch my flight to Taoyuan airport, but the displays don't show any flights to far east Asia until 30 minutes before my departure.

Then suddenly TK 0024 pops up, it says delayed. First 20 minutes, then one hour and then suddenly almost 5 hours.

It is 1.10 am I have no gate and besides this display no information at all. Most people in the airport don't speak English. Wifi is limited to 60 minutes per passport ID or mobile number.

Suddenly I spot a huge group of family members swearing in a mixed language between Austrian German and Turkish. All the women were heavily covered in headscarfs, but I managed to read from the passports they were carrying to read "Republic of Austria". So, I decided to follow their lead and they found a service desk by Turkish Airlines. Only problem was that a family of 14 members has been stranded in the airport for 16 hours, so instead of normal talking to the desk, they prepared to throw all sorts of rubbish at the people working at the desk. You could cut the tension in the air with a knife.

The service desk itself was well prepared with heavy armed police? private security? No idea, they were all in black armed with sticks and teasers. The mother of the family got out of control, but I barely could understand a word since everything was in Turkish. So, I asked the grandpa of the group what happened. He told me a very cute Austrian Graz accent that they were trying to fly back to Vienna airport, cannot leave airport and have been sleeping on the floor without getting any food or beverage.

I said to him to better call the Austrian embassy and receive some decent human treatment. Then I asked him if his daughter could leave at least one person alive so, I finally could get a gate number. Using nets the men in black surrounded them and isolated them in a corner of the airport. After waiting 30 minutes I finally got the desk. The man at the desk said to me: "TK 0024 got cancelled. Don't worry! On this flight the Olympic team of Chinese Taipei is supposed to board. The Taipei office in Turkey agreed to revert a flight from Eva Air to pick up the passengers. Gates will be announced at roughly 5 am."

"What am I suppose to do until then? " I asked him. He said something in Turkish and printed out a coupon for a meal and only said " go go!". The men in black started to point into my direction and so I took off.

Naively I assumed that I got myself at least a free meal. Going to the 2nd floor I went to the first restaurant asking if I could have a tuna sandwhich, but all second floor restaurants waved me off, not accepting this piece of paper.

Then an Australian passenger said to me "Mate, you have to go to the 3rd floor. I got it ,too. It is only for the fast food restaurants." He was stucked for 9 hours waiting for any connection flight.

Ok, 3rd floor Subway, PopEye, and many unknown brands I never heard about. I'm not a fast food fan, but better than nothing. At the end I selected N.Y. C. pasta world. The guy at the desk spoke some broken English. I asked him if I could change from coke to water. He agreed, but I will have to pay extra. So, I few more Turkish Lires I thought might be fine. Last time I could get some wifi reception exchange rates between NT$ to Turkish Lire. So I took out my Taiwanese debit card. The guy swiped once and says "credit card only". So, I take out my Taiwanese credit card and he swiped my card, then suddenly I receive a phone call from Cathy Bank customer service. The cellular service was still working. The customer service guy asked me:"Did you try to pay 379,36 USD for a pasta? Shall I allow the transaction?" - Me:"No way and please block all Turkish Lire transactions immediately." So, I asked the guy from the food chain to cancel my order.

Chinese Taipei - Finally teaming up

It is an unwritten rule that you will find Taiwanese people where ever you can food. I figured that I cannot beat these Turkish alone they are sticking together like glue. I will need my own army in order to win the battle. It is 3 am and everyone is exhausted, tired, hungry and thirsty. So, I started to talk to them in Mandarin and of course you get this fire of excitement to speak in their own tongue, but most important to me full attention.

To cut the cheese, I asked if anyone still wifi credit left and one actually did. So, no time for small talk, immediately create a battle plan. The athletes from Taiwan were all super young, but they didn't have any adult guiding them. So they immediately started to call me teacher Tsao ( 曹老師）。First don't speak one word of English. I got papers and pens.

1. First draw a map of the airport with all relevant resources like free drinking water, free of charge disinfection liquid.
2. Create an inventory list of everything we have like utensils, containers for water, etc.
3. A plan how to collect and clean (disinfect) salvage materials like cups, knifes, spoons or whatever we could salvage from the litter bins.
4. The 3rd floor had plenty of left overs. Some people ordered pizzas or fried chicken and cut off just a few bites. So now it was about finding out how to cut off the bit parts and organise water by cleaning used cups.
5. Get the international rules from IATA for such a case. I expected some authorities to go against us soon as they will seen us eating and drinking.

War on and we organised to get plenty of food and drinking water within 30 minutes only. The team work was amazing and mood was up since it felt so good to have at least one victory against all the odds. Soon, a man from the airport management came escorted by two men. Saying "Hey what are you doing!? You have to pay for this. There is no such thing as free lunch! Someone has to pay for it."

Prepared I asked two of the boys to record everything on video and then I replied very calm to him:"According to the IATA passenger rights act ... bla bla and international convention of airports bla bla. We actually provide an unpaid cleaning service to the airport and should be compensated for our service...." the man gets very angry and then one of the man tells him in Turkish that he has been filmed all the time. So, he leaves without any further ado. The Turkish employees around start laughing, wait until the three left and congratulated us giving us high five saying that we are the first one beating the system of Erdogan.

Eva Air flight BR2080 has arrived to rescue. At the end, it delayed for 5 hours 20 minutes. Finally a gate with A9. Desperate to get finally a descent sleep on the airplane everyone was walking to the gate. All the Turkish employees smiling and clapping impressed by Chinese Taipei.

The last 40 minutes to the final departure. While waiting a lot of Turkish started to donate sandwiches to demonstrate their gratitude.

Last passport, visa, PCR test and this hilarious CDC online form. Suddenly the only blonde, blue eyed and tall passenger in the queue talks to the desk."Lady your nationality is Ukrainian may I see your visa?" She shows all documents by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office Warsaw. Then he asks :"You have no home address in Ukraine or contacts. Only this person in Taiwan. Before you board may I know your background?" She stumbles:"I'm from Mariupol. I used to worked as a nurse at child birth hospital. My home is destroyed. My family is dead. I'm the sole surviver of my family. The man I listed here is my Taiwanese fiancé. He will pick me up at the airport."

Suddenly the entire group understood that it is not for granted to have a home and family. Certainly everybody felt sorry for her. Some of the girls sat next to her to help her preparing for her coming life in Taiwan and how family culture works in Taiwan. I myself was simply knocked out and just slept from take off to landing non-stop. Eva Air planes are simply too comfortable.

Arriving at the airport everyone wanted to make 100% sure that he actually showed up and he did:

Here is a photo getting actually picked up. She was very overwhelmed how welcome she was and teenager to flight attendants taking care so much her. Different to Germany where refugees have to wait forever to receive a working permit or get any paper done ( this is not particular aimed at foreigners, even I as a citizen get barely any paperwork done by the government ) Taiwan has much more of a handpick case to case approach. Working with East European nations together to figure out what to do on an individual base. Like this one: https://youtu.be/e-O6cl2NqJ4 is getting common.

You are not in Taiwan yet, here comes the CDC (centre of disease control)

Remember the form I had to fill out at the very beginning at the airport in Bremen. Well, it turns out that I would have been totally fine at arrival at Taoyuan airport. I felt like putting into a running washing machine by the CDC people, because they are just so super quick. Due to my delayed flight, the lady approaching me that I have to repeat the PCR test, because I passed the 24 hours threshold. " Oh you have been to Germany, then we will test you for two more virus like monkey pox and ...." being forced to spend an extra hour at the airport for testing she offered me a deal. "Normally 3 days home quarantine starts from the next day of arrival. If you take the tests, I will enlist your arrival to day 11:55 pm. You will save one day, but still have to do 4 days of self quarantine." ok deal!

Finally at 1 am I may get a cab directly to Kaohsiung. It took over 3 hours. The taxi driver reminded me not speak since speaking could cause spreading COVID-19.

3 days of home quarantine means like imprisonment. Nobody can come in or out from your flat. Lucky my wife left me something to eat and my father in law spent the money for a tap water filter.

4 days of self isolation is no joke either. After filling out the form, I gave permission to track my phone. Trying to enter my gym, the desk was immediately warned that my self isolation isn't over yet. Restaurants only offer take aways and health minister Chen already resigned, because even he doesn't share the unscientific fear against the virus.

Anyway, five hours left to total freedom allowance to meet people again.