Police crackdown on Turkish passengers in Germany: flights to Turkey halted
In the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Turks attacked airports as school holidays started. However, only 2 desks of Pegasus (Airlines) which had scheduled 17 flights from Düsseldorf, were open. Passengers waiting for hours began kicking the counters. The employees fled in fear. All flights were cancelled, and dozens of police were involved with the Turks. Hundreds of passengers who still cannot fly to Turkey, even though they have tickets, are distraught.
The state of North Rhine-Westphalia, which is the busiest in Germany, has started school holidays. As Turks flocked to airports to get to Turkey, there was great turmoil in Düsseldorf last night. Police teams took position between the Turkish passengers and employees of the aircraft company. Dozens of flights to Turkey were cancelled. Many Turks had to spend the first day of their holidays at the airport.
Turks who wantedto fly to Turkey with Pegasus Airlines began filling Düsseldorf Airport after 16.00 yesterday. In addition to places such as Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, passengers who wanted to fly to Samsun, Antalya and Trabzon also arrived in the area.
But only two of Pegasus’s 6 counts were open, and the waiting times exceeded 4-5 hours due to additional checks, such as Corona documents, vaccination documents. After that, the nerves were stretched. Passengers began kicking the check-in counters. The officers escaped inside. As the situation became more tense due to mutual shouting and threats, dozens of police cars arrived.
CONSECUTIVE CANCELLATIONS
Four Pegasus flights were cancelled at the first moment. It was then announced that four more flights had been cancelled. Some flights were shifted to Frankfurt via Cologne and Münster.
5 flights to Turkey on Saturday were also canceled. None of the 17 scheduled flights from Düsseldorf were carried out. While some flights were delayed by a day, chaos continues.
CORONA RULE WAS ALSO NOT FOLLOWED
While both Düsseldorf and the state police intervened in the events, Corona rules were not observed due to the large crowd. It was also tried to prevent the Turks from standing too close to each other and creating overcrowding, but the police were not successful in this regard. A statement from Pegasus to German media said: “Our employees did not have the safety of their lives. They had great fears and therefore fled from there.”
