Flight delay and cancellation compensation, Thomas Cook ONLY

Totanus

Hi everybody, newbie here. I've searched the forum the best I can but haven't found anything related to our problem. We were booked onto the 10.30am flight TCX2029 from Enfidha to Manchester on 7th August. The flight arrived on time, unfortunately the plane they had sent was too small to get everybody on! Guess what, we were among the 60 or so left behind! Cutting a long story short, the Thomas Cook rep at the airport eventually told everybody that another plane had been arranged to get us all back to the UK, unfortunately, this was to be to Stansted rather than Manchester, where our car was! They had arranged for a bus to pick us up at Stansted and drive us all to Manchester.
My gripe...the re-arranged flight was booked for 3.30pm i.e. 5 hours late (it eventually left at 4.15pm)
The 5 hour non stop bus journey from Stansted to Manchester was horrendous and we got back to Manchester at 12.30am on the 8th August....11 hours late!!!
I had to pay £10 extra to get out of Jet Parks!
We were all so knackered we had to book into the Premier Inn at the airport and continue our onward journey home to South Yorkshire next day i.e. another expense of £78.90.
My question is, can I claim for all the inconvenience as well as the additional expenses? Should I claim using the template for a delayed flight? (even though the flight wasn't actually delayed, the plane just wasn't big enough!). Or should I use the cancellation template?...or neither?
Thanks in advance for your help.

Vauban

Totanus wrote: »

Hi everybody, newbie here. I've searched the forum the best I can but haven't found anything related to our problem. We were booked onto the 10.30am flight TCX2029 from Enfidha to Manchester on 7th August. The flight arrived on time, unfortunately the plane they had sent was too small to get everybody on! Guess what, we were among the 60 or so left behind! Cutting a long story short, the Thomas Cook rep at the airport eventually told everybody that another plane had been arranged to get us all back to the UK, unfortunately, this was to be to Stansted rather than Manchester, where our car was! They had arranged for a bus to pick us up at Stansted and drive us all to Manchester.
My gripe...the re-arranged flight was booked for 3.30pm i.e. 5 hours late (it eventually left at 4.15pm)
The 5 hour non stop bus journey from Stansted to Manchester was horrendous and we got back to Manchester at 12.30am on the 8th August....11 hours late!!!
I had to pay £10 extra to get out of Jet Parks!
We were all so knackered we had to book into the Premier Inn at the airport and continue our onward journey home to South Yorkshire next day i.e. another expense of £78.90.
My question is, can I claim for all the inconvenience as well as the additional expenses? Should I claim using the template for a delayed flight? (even though the flight wasn't actually delayed, the plane just wasn't big enough!). Or should I use the cancellation template?...or neither?
Thanks in advance for your help.

The bad news is that you have no legal right to reimbursement for the hotel in Manchester.

The good news is that you can claim for "denied boarding" (rather than delay) and there are few reasons an airline can cite to withhold payment of compensation. Look up "denied boarding" on this forum for further details.

maghater

Totanus wrote: »

Hi everybody, newbie here. I've searched the forum the best I can but haven't found anything related to our problem. We were booked onto the 10.30am flight TCX2029 from Enfidha to Manchester on 7th August. The flight arrived on time, unfortunately the plane they had sent was too small to get everybody on! Guess what, we were among the 60 or so left behind! Cutting a long story short, the Thomas Cook rep at the airport eventually told everybody that another plane had been arranged to get us all back to the UK, unfortunately, this was to be to Stansted rather than Manchester, where our car was! They had arranged for a bus to pick us up at Stansted and drive us all to Manchester.
My gripe...the re-arranged flight was booked for 3.30pm i.e. 5 hours late (it eventually left at 4.15pm)
The 5 hour non stop bus journey from Stansted to Manchester was horrendous and we got back to Manchester at 12.30am on the 8th August....11 hours late!!!
I had to pay £10 extra to get out of Jet Parks!
We were all so knackered we had to book into the Premier Inn at the airport and continue our onward journey home to South Yorkshire next day i.e. another expense of £78.90.
My question is, can I claim for all the inconvenience as well as the additional expenses? Should I claim using the template for a delayed flight? (even though the flight wasn't actually delayed, the plane just wasn't big enough!). Or should I use the cancellation template?...or neither?
Thanks in advance for your help.

Nothing stopping you sending TC a letter, asking nicely if they would kindly consider your legitimate out of pocket expenses (enclose copies of receipts), as it was they were incurred as a result of their !!!! up. Tc will of course reply saying very sorry etc.,and refuse. This will help show Thomas Crook in a not very good light at any subsequent court case. Even in the highly unlikely event that they shell out, you can still chase them for EU flight delay compensation. There have been several similar posts regarding TC sending a smaller plane, shocking. Trying to run a service with insufficient resources, very worrying. Don't be fobbed off by them.

maghater

weegi1985 wrote: »

I'm just about to pop my letter in the post for this flight too! Did you manage to get cash instead of the vouchers?

I'll keep you posted on how I get on!

Vouchers or cash is not an option for TC, unless you request otherwise they must give you a cheque. If you receive vouchers ring up and demand cash by return. Also report them to the CAA for breach of EC 261/2004. Also suggest caution, and equate settlement amount with distances involved, they have been known to fob people off with a lesser amount than your entitlement.

danyosan

maghater wrote: »

Vouchers or cash is not an option for TC, unless you request otherwise they must give you a cheque. If you receive vouchers ring up and demand cash by return. Also report them to the CAA for breach of EC 261/2004. Also suggest caution, and equate settlement amount with distances involved, they have been known to fob people off with a lesser amount than your entitlement.

I eventually managed to get a settlement, and I think they diddled me out of £80 as I was expecting £800 and only got £720.

My question is this, they offered me vouchers which I refused, and was told they would issue a cheque. 4 months later, and numerous phone calls from Ireland enquiring to the whereabouts of the cheque (which I'd guess amounted to easily €50) I eventually received it, after being fobbed off an untold amount of times. Am I entitled to claim the cost of these phone calls back?

Im really fuming about it considering they have already done me out of £80.

Perkipsie

My Story so far......

I have been lurking and reading this forum for a long timenow and have slowly be making what I hope is progress. If anyone has any adviceor further insight into anything I should consider or act on please feel freeto comment. My apologies for the length but wanted to be sure to include allinformation.



14th February 2010: my husband and I have ourflight from Gatwick to Cancun was delayed by over 23 hours

14th November 2012: I wrote my first letterrequesting compensation under the EU regulation

10th December 2012: I received the generic “youhave not complained within 28 days of your return” letter

7th January 2013: I responded with I hadcomplained on my return at the time but the 28 days was irrelevant in terms ofthe regulation.

8th February 2013: received a 6 line letterstating they needed further time to fully investigate my claim.

12 March 2013: Received a letter informing me that my flightwas only delayed by 11 minutes and I was not eligible for any compensation

12 March 2013: Iresponded that they had not checked the correct details (or checked mysupplementary documents including 2 different letters given to me by customerrelations during the delay) It appears they have investigated another of myflights from the previous year.

11 April 2013: I received the generic extraordinarycircumstances letter with the offer of a cheque for £30 or a voucher of £50 asa goodwill gesture for the error on my original complaint.

11 April 2013: I responded that I disagreed with their interpretationof the regulation in that a technical problem was not extraordinary and that Iwould now commence legal proceedings if they had no further comment to mycomplaint.

19th May 2013: Filed my MCOL

31st May 2013: Received acknowledgement fromNorthampton County Court that TC would be deemed to be served from 5thJune and has until 19th June to reply

10th June 2013: Received Acknowledgement ofService

4th July 2013: Received defendants defence, thedefence laid out states

1. The flight was officially delayed by 22 hours 51minutes.

2. The flight was subject to EC261/2004. Contraryto the Claimants particulars, the regulation does not expressly provide thatcompensation is payable in the event of a delayed flight

3. Claimants compensation claim is based on the decisionof the ECJ Sturgeon v Condor and Bock v Air France

4. Surgeon confirms measure of delay is that of arrivaland it is admitted that the flight was delayed by a period exceeding 3 hours

5. It is averred that the delay was due to skindamage to the aircraft intended to operate the claimants flight; the sameconstituting extraordinary circumstances for the purposes of the regulation. Itis averred that the defendant took all measures that would be deemed asreasonable to remedy the damage and minimise the impact on the claimant

6. Further or in the alternative to court of appeal decision in Graham & Anor vThomas Cook Group it is averred that the claimant has no private law civilcause of action against the defendant and instead the claim must be broughtbefore the CAA

7. Claimant is not entitled to bring this claim onbehalf of any other person

8. Should the defendant be ajudged to be liable,the defendant would admit to the claimants individual entitlement would be thesterling equivalent of 600 Euros. Should it be deemed that the claimant isentitled to advance her partners claim, the claimants partner would also be entitledto 600 Euros

17th July 2013: Case referred to my local county court

3rd August 2013: District judge has allocated tosmall claims. Considers it suitable for mediation. Has allocated a hearing datefor 4th November 2013

Today I have paid £110 hearing fee and confirmed that I amhappy to attempt mediation. If you havestuck with me through this saga and have any advice to offer I thank you.

GemsP91

Hi all, I wanted to put my situation out there to see what you all think, and to see if anyone could give me some advice on whether you think I'm entitled to compensation or not.

We were delayed on 15.05.12 going from Reus to Glasgow by 6 and a half hours. Didn't realise up until a few weeks ago that I might be entitled to compensation, so I sent Thomas Cook a letter (thanks to MSE for the template). At the airport, we had received a letter telling us that the flight had been delayed due to "unforeseen operational circumstances", so I included this in my letter to them. We finally took off but landed late into the night rather than mid-afternoon. I received an email from Thomas Cook telling me that they were looking into my claim. About 1 week later I received an email from Customer Relations telling me that it was due to "weather conditions", however I then received another email within a couple of minutes telling me that they were sorry I was unhappy with their previous response and that the technical fault was an "extraodinary circumstance" and that if I wanted to take it further I was to contact the CAA. I immediately replied back asking for an explanation - what was it, technical fault or weather? I phoned them up when I got home and someone else looked into it and said it was definitely weather and they were sorry I received two reponses - obviously both of these were templates as how could you send two huge emails like that within a few minutes of each other! Now, when they say weather conditions, I really cannot understand this, as it was blazing sunshine in Reus (we sunbathed on the tarmac outside for the best part of 5 hours) and the weather was typical Scottish weather in Glasgow (this can be vouched for by anyone, especially all of our family members who were awaiting our arrival back home and couldn't understand why we had been delayed). We had also been told, and whether this is true or not I don't know, that one of the other passengers had just been on the phone to her friend (and I definitely saw her on the phone to someone, quite surprised and irate at the same time) and she was due to fly out to Reus that day, on the plane that we were supposed to be coming back on, and it was grounded on the runway. The passenger challenged a TC rep at the airport in front of us, and all the rep said was that they couldn't comment on the situation at Glasgow.I replied back to TC to say that I wasn't happy and I would be taking it up with the CAA and that was that. I have since emailed the CAA with all information. Funny thing now is, just the other day, I received yet another email from the exact same Customer Relations employee about the technical fault - again!! I replied back, getting quite frustrated at this point, and they just replied back with a template that they couldn't even tailor to me personally - highlighting specifically the part where it said "As stated in my previous <email/letter>..." - I mean, come on, it's not hard to just delete a word to make it apply to the customer. Anyways, I decided not to reply to that email as they put at the end of that email that they'd closed my case, and I felt that I may say some things at that frustrating time that may not have helped my case.

Any advice would be appreciated, I really just want to know how far you think I should pursue this.

Thanks

111KAB

GemsP91 wrote: »

Any advice would be appreciated, I really just want to know how far you think I should pursue this.

Keep all the letters. Check weather on same day and see if other flights departed/landed. Most likely result is you will have to take TC to court to pursue your legitimate claim.

GemsP91

111KAB wrote: »

Keep all the letters. Check weather on same day and see if other flights departed/landed. Most likely result is you will have to take TC to court to pursue your legitimate claim.

Thanks 111KAB, got all of the emails kept, checked the weather for that day as well and sent to CAA. Will check other flight stats for that day, thanks for that advice. Anybody any ideas roughly how much it is for court proceedings?

111KAB

GemsP91 wrote: »

Anybody any ideas roughly how much it is for court proceedings?

Do your own search for this as depends upon amount of claim (number in party) plus if you intend to use MCOL. Lots of your answers on page one.