My complaint:
My father, brother and I went through TSA at Istanbul airport on our way to our connection international flight to San Francisco. Upon arrival at TSA, I was yelled at by a TSA agent to wait my turn as I began to load my things onto the security belt. The reason he yelled at me was because another passenger thought I was cutting. Rather than assess the situation, the TSA employee began berating me as well and would not let me speak when I explained that I was sinply making room for the people in line behind me. When I spoke up, he interrupted me and yelled that he was speaking. Not only was it humiliating, it was clear that he was doing so because I was a woman and he was a man and he was doing so with no assessment of the situation at hand. He simply was supporting a fellow male passenger in his efforts to patronize me. To add insult to injury with this awful experience, my father placed his precious and priceless ring in the security belt box. Upon the security boxes coming through, the ring was missing. There is no doubt that an employee had picked it up as there is no other explanation as to where it went compounded by the hostility shown when we urgently looked for it. We were dismissed, yelled at, layghed at and threatened with the police for sinply asking if they could check the cameras to make sure the ring went through. The officer who is the supervisor was then called and berated myself and my father and screamed at us to relax and threatened us with the police. The violation of traveler’s rights and harassment experienced at Istanbul TSA is not the first and probably not the last time, but the humiliation and clear disregard for personal belongings that your employees showed and was supported by the supervisor proves that the Istanbul airport does nor provide proper TSA clearance nor are travelers rights ensured properly. If we cannot count on the very people in your airport to handle our belongings within a 3-foot stretch of security how can we be sure that your aiport is safe at all for anyone that is not Turkish? The harassment specifically was geared at various other brown individuals who were clearly not Turkish. I intend on hearing back as to what recompense can be provided to us not only for the harassment, verbal abuse and patronizing behavior but also for the stolen ring.
Suggested solution:
Compensation
