CTA Suspend Flights

Transit Management has now rebooked about 99% of its CTA customers on Atlasjet all free of charge.  If you are a Transit Management customer and you have not heard from us can you please contact us by phone on 01689 829911.  Passengers who have booked direct with CTA or on the internet we can request transfer of your booking to Atlasjet but will charge a fee of £15 for this service.

We became aware in early May 2010 of rumours that the Turkish government would no longer support CTA and of various speculation what was going to happen.  The prime source of this was from the North Cyprus newspaper 'Cyprus Today'. We contacted CTA and were told by the Management that CTA was owned and guaranteed by the Turkish government and there was nothing to worry about.  We also asked the staff what they thought and were told that they had heard the rumours but were not concerned as such rumours had been circulating for over two years and nothing had happened.

If customers raised any questions we asked them what they had heard and told them the above CTA views and whatever else we had heard. However, as there was a new Turkish government, we were more concerned about the rumours and for a short while in May we warned any new bookers of the situation.  We learned that a deadline had been made by the banks and that deadline passed and we then assumed that the CTA staff view were correct and so discussed the situation only when asked..  We also heard that some sort of support was being given by North Cyprus tourism organisations and hotels.  As, as a precaution, we had been promoting Pegasus over CTA,  Pegasus fares became considerably more expensive so, when we quoted the choice of fares, people started opting for CTA again.

Past Updates

Update 11/7.  As the Atlasjet service is now operational, the previously declared policy offering refunds to passengers within 5 days of travel and rebooking will no longer be applied to future travellers as they will be rebooked on the above Atlasjet service free of any extra charge.

Update 7/7/2010
For a few days, as a temporary stopgap measure, Atlasjet operated a temporary service to carry stranded CTA customers and this was a shambles.  They have completed plans to operate a proper service and reservations are now needed.  CTA tickets are being accepted but this takes a few hours to arrange. The process of arranging this for our customers has now started.

Update 5/7
AtlasJet now require arrangements to be made in advance and this needs to be made through Atlas Jet sales agent click here for details (Link withdrawn as info superceded)

Update 2/7
Atlas Jet are changing  the rules for accepting KTHY tickets from 5/7 see 
http://cmss.atlasjet.com/en/faq.
Good explanations of the situation can be seen at  worldbulletin (best), DailyNews & Turkey Today

Update 1 Jul 08.50
Whilst we have no material update we have found the best sources of news  is worldbulletin

Update 30 June 14.10
Pegasus will operate an extra service Stansted/Ercan between  19/7 and 27/9.  Prices from £302.67

Update 29 Jun 10.00
AtlasJet are prepared to carry KTHY passengers subject to space and will accept your KTHY tickets.  For further information, flight dates and times see 
http://cmss.atlasjet.com/en/faq
and click the details "Regulation for passengers holding KTHY tickets" The sub pages that pop up will show acceptance terms and details of flights being operated.

It appears that there are various rescue attempts being made. The main contender appears to be AtlasJet who reached an agreement with the Turkish government but that was scuppered by the Unions. A further agreement was reached with the Unions but that was rejected by the Turkish government. AtlasJet then announced they were giving up, and then suddenly agreement was reached.

We are currently in a difficult position as CTA are not contactable and their computer system is turned off. You can see the only communication we have had on the matter. Whilst we have backup paper files they would lead us to the CTA records for email and phone number, but we can no longer access.  Whilst we normally have contact details on our paper file, this is not always the case so if your departure date is within 10 days please contact us if we have not been in contact.. 

For persons with tickets we have to say 'We don't know'  The situation is so unclear, any precipitate action would be a mistake. If your flight is operated then your ticket will be subject to the terms and conditions which include cancellation charges. Furthermore if the flight is operated you will have paid the fare so you might as well travel.  If you change you will have to pay a much dearer fare as well as having to pay the cancellation charges if the flight is actually operated. We suggest you hold on for a few days.

Pegasus (who we also book and we charge the same as Pegasus quote on their internet site) are operating as usual, have added an extra flight from Stansted on Mondays 19 Jul-27 Sep

The situation is more tricky for persons travelling in a few days time.  For persons travelling within 10 days Transit Management will  credit the fare we have paid CTA  ie excluding extras such as car parking, car hire our fees etc towards a new booking  Transit makes on another airline.  For persons travelling within 4 days, if preferred, Transit will refund their customers. 

Should we become aware of any developments we will update this page accordingly.

When the situation has clarified we will email our customers accordingly.

We are sorry this situation has arisen but trust you understand it is totally out of our control. Negotiations are at a high level and we are not being informed of the situation and are having to make our own judgments which is based on the above. We do wish to help our clients as much as possible but at the moment we do not know anything further. We are very busy trying to help customers who were booked to travel in the next few days and ascertain the position.  We are unable to help anyone who has not booked with us except for a fee of 50p a minute (credit card required) other than to make a new booking. This is necessary because we are having difficulty find the time rebooking and refunding our own customers but from whom we have earned a fee/commission,    Transit Management customers who wish to contact us should call 01689 829911 although we would appreciate it if our customers could check this page before contacting us so that we have time to look after those in the most desperate situation.