I purchased a round-trip ticket from Pegasus Airlines for the Antalya-Tel Aviv route, scheduled for November 12-16, 2023, with PRN numbers H8M and K5H. After the outbreak of war in Palestine, Pegasus canceled the flight and informed me via message that they would offer three options as a one-time gesture: 1) a refund, 2) keeping the ticket open for a year, or 3) changing the ticket to another route free of charge. I opted to change my ticket to another route and contacted customer service. However, they only provided the option to use the ticket within the same route (Tel Aviv) within a year. The representative I spoke to said the flight could only be changed back to Tel Aviv. When I specifically asked if this meant they were expecting me to return to a war-torn Israel, they confirmed. Do they not understand the uncertainty of when the war will end or if it will even be safe to travel? While such policies may apply in normal circumstances, why are they insisting on Tel Aviv in this extraordinary situation caused by war? At the time of purchase, the ticket price was sufficient to travel to many European countries. Why is there no option to change the ticket to another suitable country under these extraordinary circumstances? Is it really so difficult to consider this? Every customer service representative I spoke to on the phone provided conflicting information. Some suggested that countries bordering Israel, such as Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt, might be valid options, while others said even those options were not available, restricting the change solely to Tel Aviv. It feels as though this decision is entirely left to the discretion of the representative I speak to. As a result, they left my ticket open for a year. However, due to the ongoing war, no flights to Tel Aviv have resumed. Even within one year, they failed to provide me with a ticket to Tel Aviv and are now forcing a refund on me. Yet, they refuse to honor the third option stated in their message: a free route change. I do not want a refund because, considering inflation and the time that has passed since the ticket purchase, the purchasing power of the amount I paid has significantly diminished. In a similar situation during the Russia-Ukraine War, passengers whose flights were canceled were offered the option to fly to four alternative countries (Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, or Greece) as a one-time gesture. Pegasus refused my request for a route change and left my ticket open for a year, yet they could not provide me with a ticket for the same route during this time. A year has now passed. I am requesting the right to fly to another country, as per the legally binding third option they initially offered me.
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