It’s a small world. A few days ago I saw reports of an Air France flight diverting to Turkmenistan, one of the world’s most closed off countries. I thought that was pretty fascinating, but didn’t write about it at the time. Well, now an OMAAT reader shared that he was on the flight, and is asking for some advice.
Air France Turkmenistan diversion leads to major delay
OMAAT reader Shashank had booked a roundtrip ticket on Air France-KLM from Houston (IAH) to Bengaluru (BLR), with the outbound on KLM through Amsterdam (AMS), and the return on Air France through Paris (CDG). While the outbound was uneventful, the return is where things got more complicated.
On January 12, 2026, he was supposed to take Air France flight AF191 from Bengaluru to Paris, scheduled to depart at 2AM and arrive at 8:20AM:
- While check-in occurred without issue, the flight was then initially delayed by two hours shortly before departure due to a technical issue, before ultimately being delayed much longer
- All passengers had to get immigration stamps canceled, and Air France arranged hotels
- A replacement flight was then scheduled for around 11PM that night, 21 hours after the initially scheduled time; he was then also rebooked on the Paris to Houston flight an additional day later, leading to the initial 24-hour delay
The replacement flight took off as planned (21 hours late), but about four hours into the flight, while over Turkmenistan, the captain announced there were issues with the left engine, and that the flight would be diverting to Ashgabat (ASB).
The plane landed at around 4AM local time, and parked at a remote stand, with passengers being told that a replacement aircraft would likely arrive in the afternoon. Because Turkmenistan issues visas only by government invitation, passengers were stuck onboard for around five hours, then in the terminal for another two hours, while the French and US embassies coordinated emergency one-day visas. Passengers got to the hotel around 4PM, 12 hours after they landed.
At the hotel, Air France arranged food and rooms, and later informed passengers that a replacement flight would depart at 1AM local time. So they were transported back to the airport around 10PM, and arrived in Paris around 3AM. In the end, Shashank made it back to Houston around 48 hours later than initially planned.
This brings us to Shashank’s question:
For this entire experience, Air France provided only €400 in flight credit. I understand EU261 does not technically apply here, but given the length of the delay, the emergency landing, and the extraordinary circumstances involved, this feels inadequate.
Is there any other recourse — contractual, regulatory, or goodwill-based — that could realistically result in more appropriate compensation? And if so, how would you recommend approaching Air France to maximize the chances of success?
My take on this incident, and what’s appropriate
Perhaps after North Korea, Turkmenistan is one of the world’s most mysterious and closed off countries, so it’s fascinating to see the diversion there. When I first saw about the diversion, I thought “hey, I kind of wish I were on that flight,” but that’s in the most avgeek kind of way possible, and I understand this was a massive inconvenience for everyone involved.
There’s no denying that Air France had a really rough showing on this flight — first the flight was delayed by many hours due to a maintenance issue, and then it diverted due to a maintenance issue. For what it’s worth, it looks like the plane being used for the flight was the 26-year-old Boeing 777-200ER with the registration code F-GSPI.
They must’ve done some repairs while in Bengaluru, since it’s not that Air France flew in another plane, or anything. Now, we don’t have enough information to say whether the first issue that caused the delay was in any way related to the second issue that caused the diversion, and there’s no point in speculating there.
I think it’s worth zooming out with Shashank’s question. When an airline delays you massively (in this case by 48 hours), what’s the appropriate compensation? A few things to note:
- Ordinarily EC261 compensation would apply in this situation, and would guarantee €600 in cash; the reason it doesn’t apply here is because Shashank was simply transiting the EU, rather than originating or terminating there
- Obviously 48 hours of largely wasted time is extremely frustrating, and it’s hard for an airline to make someone whole for that; for that matter, airline contracts of carriage promise very little
- By all accounts, it sounds like Air France did a relatively good job handling this; the fact that the airline managed to arrange emergency visas in Turkmenistan within a semi-reasonable amount of time is impressive, given how closed off the country is
To answer Shashank’s question, there’s not any contractual or regulatory recourse here, beyond the duty of care, which the airline seemingly provided. From a goodwill perspective, would I hope for more than a €400 voucher? Yes, absolutely. I think the best that can be done is to send another email to customer relations asking if they’d be willing to up the offer, in light of what was experienced, and the extreme inconvenience.
However, I think this is otherwise one of those tricky situations that falls more in the category of “ugh, that was a rough and unfortunate experience, better luck next time,” rather than “the airline royally screwed this up, and they need to pay.”
So I’d actually like to open this up to the OMAAT community — in these kinds of situations, what do you think it’s appropriate for an airline to do?
Bottom line
Passengers traveling on a recent Air France flight from Bengaluru to Paris were in for quite a journey. First the flight was delayed by 21 hours due to a maintenance issue, and then when it finally did take off, it diverted to Turkmenistan due to an engine issue.
Turkmenistan is one of the most closed off countries, so it took the airline a while to arrange visas and hotels, but surprisingly, it all worked out. In the end, a Houston-bound passenger arrived home 48 hours late, and was offered a €400 flight credit as an apology.
I definitely agree that’s on the cheap side, given the inconvenience incurred. At the same time, I’m not surprised that’s what was offered. I do think airlines should do a little better in these kinds of situations, but I also understand why they don’t, as a standard.
What do you make of this incident, and what do you think appropriate compensation is?
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