It’s no longer worthwhile to transit via Turkey for cheaper airfare. The airport is a nightmare and the Turks are rude and unhelpful.

I do admire the Norwegian model, that’s what has made Norwegian a lot happier than us Americans with our cutthroat capitalism.

Ireland has low corporate taxes. That is why Apple is there, I believe. All this should not increase safety concerns. They have been flying 20 years without an incident.

For a more distant European experience: We (my wife, me and two kids) were flying in Mid-Late 90s (still a golden age of air travel with all perks) from Vienna to Geneva. A short flight for which we got with Swissair tickets on a codeshare flight with Austrian, operated by Austrian. The flight had a technical problem that showed up just before take of procedure. The pilots slowed down engine and took an exitway, stopped there, we were disembarked by bus. A friendly hostess welcomed us to the bus, took a seat next to the driver. She disappeared earlier than the driver opened passengers’ doors. That was it. No information on boards, no staff at transfer desks. Nothing. Two Swissair flights left Vienna, and there was no chance for us to get re-booked / re-routed on those. It took several hours before they displayed our flight number and set boarding and departure times. The gate changed a couple of times. It was almost 12 hours later, when the flight left – 1 hour prior to what was announced on boards. The aircraft was almost empty. Some passengers probably found an alternative, but surely many missed the boarding due to a mistake. We were offered a voucher of CHF 300 for a future travel – as a compensation (1 voucher / 4 passengers) – it was a joke, I have thrown that voucher to the garbage.

Do you still want to compare this to Norwegian? I would not. I speak about the Swiss pride on the skies Swissair, the Austrian state monopoly Austrian Airlines and Vienna Airport that is the most important in Central Europe.

Let’s not overestimate the power of alliances and big network companies. When there is a failure, it is always a problem.

For a more recent event: In January 2016 we have flown, with my wife, from Vienna to Beirut on TK via Istanbul. I will never forget 6 January 2016. There was an extremely long taxi after landing in Istanbul. Extremely long means perhaps an hour or so. Then we disembarked by bus, and passed to the terminal (passengers from Europe originating flights are free from security check). So we settled in one of the lounges (accessible with our Priority Pass cards – that was a great advantage), and waited. Not so long before the scheduled boarding time I got an SMS (advantage of having registered my mobile number during e-check-in) an SMS that our flight to Beirut was cancelled. I left my spouse in the lounge, and left with two boarding passes to seek a transfer desk. There was none. The entire secured airside of the international terminal in Istanbul is free of any transfer desk. The only way is to descend one floor through a dark and ugly staircase approach a security officer and ask to cross the security point in a countersense — you have to give all details of your case, or it is NO. When you exit, there is a big transfer desk (usually unmanned) of Turkish Ground Services (a subsidiary of TK) with a big label “Turkish Airlines Transfer Desk is not here”. So you turn left, walk a little while around arrivals gates and find the TK Service Center. There was a long queue, in an hour I go new boarding passes, went to Security, underwent their check, and used an escalator upstairs, went to the lounge and joined my wife.
…
When that new flight got cancelled, I tried the same, the queue was much longer, the crew at the desk was replaced by ladies saying “NO, I CANNOT DO ANYTHING, THERE ARE NO FLIGHTS”. What to do? No information.
….
OK so the situation was worsening over the following 5 days. It was caused by snow. There was a lot of fresh snow everywhere in Europe. I was in a phone contact with an airline pilot, who was landing and taking off on snowy and frozen German runways, where the crews cleaned and re-cleaned aprons, had to de-iced some aircrafts twice until they got to the white skies. That pilot was furious after looking into reports and comparing those airports with Istanbul. So there was a problem in Istanbul, there was no help from Turkish Arlines that are in Star Alliance. We were simply 5 days jailed in Istanbul. I paid the hotel and extended it on daily basis, because 3 km hotel queue by Turkish Airlines was unacceptable. We did two trips daily to the airport to get a re-booking that was later cancelled.

When we finally left Istanbul the flight was half empty — TK were not even able to properly fill the planes with all stranded passengers. We four on our arrivals that our bags were in Beirut two days before us — on which flights? We were denied any earlier options. Probably those earlier flights were also booked only on paper and were flying with empty seats.

You waited 28 hours, you were entitled to what the EU regulations give you. We were 5 days outside EU.