Flight delay and cancellation compensation, Thomas Cook ONLY

Liamholcroft

Hi Guys,

Just thought i'd fill you in on some good news that I've had following a flight delay.

Me, My wife and 3 y/o son travelled to Mallorca on 25th May from Stansted and were due to take off at 5:45pm for arrival at 9:15pm.

The flight was delayed due to a technical fault with the plane and resulted in TC having to fly in another plane which resulted in a long delay.

We eventually go on the plane and departed at 10:42pm and landed in Mallorca at 1:11am!!

Almost a 4 hour delay from our original expected landing time.

On returning from holiday, I filled out the Resolver form on MSE and waited for the response, but heard nothing. After 28 days I escalated the complaint and received a response asking for my flight details. Again nothing was then heard.

So rather than chasing by email again, I phoned them last night.

Got through to a nice enough guy who looked up our booking, found our flight details and complaint and agreed that the delay was over 3 hours and their fault.

He immediately offered vouchers at 250 euros each but we requested cash. He then said 'No problem', took our card details and has sent a BACS payment for £641 to us which should be in our account within 7-10 working days.

I thought i'd post this as I've seen a few people getting frustrated at not hearing anything. I know the resolver tool is a good starting point, but sometimes just ringing and having a conversation with them might get you the result you want.

Hope you all get a good result like I did.

siskyline

Hi all,

Well its come to the end of the 28 days grace that Thomas cook ask on their auto Email.

I think I will take Liam advice above and try and give a rep a ring and see what they say.

I was also going to send a SAR in preparation to take Thomas cook to court. the reason for the request is because they women at the check in desk destroyed our original boarding cards when we showed her them the next day (I now wonder why ). So the next best thing according to Vaubun is the subject access request.

For the SAR i was wondering who do you make the cheque payable to? is it just Thomas cook?

because its for me and my partner will they want 2 £10 cheques? or one because its under a single booking?

My partner booked our holiday directly with Thomas cook in the shop so I've put the address as the following if thats correct?

Group Airlines Data Protection Officer,
Thomas Cook Airlines Limited,
Hangar 1, Western Maintenance Area,
Runger Lane,
Manchester Airport,
M90 5FL

and have asked for the following information if this will get me the data I need to prove that we showed up to board the original flight.

*Copies of all documents which include any of my personal information including copies of any contracts or invoices, emails or computer records containing my personal information, or any records which pertain to this information.

*Full copies or transcripts of any correspondence in postal, email or any other format which you have entered into with any individual, organization or third party which contains my personal or financial, or which pertains to me.

*Passenger manifest or details for the flights MT124 departing manchester on 08/05/2016 and MT125 departing Las Vegas on 15/05/2016.

Any advice or support would be really appreciated

legal_magpie

I wouldn't mess about with SAR. The flight was only a few weeks ago.
Just send a notice before action and if they don't comply, sue them.

Vauban

legal_magpie wrote: »

I wouldn't mess about with SAR. The flight was only a few weeks ago.
Just send a notice before action and if they don't comply, sue them.

I agree. If the airline were denying you took the flight, or refusing to process the claim, you could consider a SAR. But they're not: they're just ignoring you. No harm in calling, in case it resolves matters easily. But if not do the one and only thing they can't ignore: issue a court claim (after sending a NBA with 14 days notice).

siskyline

Hi all,

Thanks for the added advice about the SAR.

I rang Thomas cook up yesterday and was told that they tried to contact me (didn't seem to try too hard by leaving a voicemail or respond to my email).

The lady on the phone said they are going to pay the full compensation and refund our in fight meal for me and my partner so should have a £1000 winging its way to my bank account! :j:j:j

Thanks again Liam for the advice of ringing up, I was hesitant at first because I wanted all correspondence in writing. :beer:

Chas

I've been trying to contact Thomas Cook - do you have a phone number please? All I ever get is recorded messages asking me to leave a message but they never ring back.

Thank you

siskyline

Hi Chas,

Sorry for the delay, I forgot my password

I used the number on the bottom of the automatic email responce I got. Here is a copy of it. I cant remember the switch board options I selected but it was to talk about an existing complaint.

Thomas Cook
Customer Relations
Tel No: 01733 224 814
Opening Hours: 9am-8pm Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm Sat.
Thomas Cook is a trading name of Thomas Cook Tour Operations Limited.
Registered Office: The Thomas Cook Business Park, Coningsby Road, Peterborough, PE3 8SB
Registered in England No. 3772199

Chas

Thank you siskyline

SnowWhiterThanWhite

Just had some great news within a week of sending a template letter via TC website

"Thank you for contacting us about your flight.

I am sorry that your flight with us was delayed and for any inconvenience that this must have caused you. We work really hard to ensure that when a flight is delayed the disruption caused is kept to an absolute minimum.

There are a number of factors that can contribute to a delay that have to be considered, such as Airport Authorities or Air Traffic Control, before an up to date departure time can be secured. As soon as confirmed information becomes available we commit to telling our customers at the airport or in resort.

A full investigation has been carried out to find out what the cause of the delay was and under EU Regulation 261/2004 compensation is payable on this occasion.

I am really pleased to confirm that I have processed a payment for you of £1020.00 as full and final settlement for everyone on your booking. This equates to €400 per person as outlined in the Regulation. This payment is in full and final settlement for everyone on your booking. This payment should show in your account within 10 working days.

The on-time performance of your flight is as important to us as it is to you, thank you for contacting us and we look forward to welcoming you to travel with us again soon.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you require any further help. "

The flight was delayed at Bourgas by 4 hours, then diverted to Birmingham instead of Cardiff. Bused back to Cardiff, arriving 7 hours late.

I can't quite believe how quick and painless this has been. I actually feel sorry for the airline - the amount paid out was more than the cost of the holiday!

davidb2002

I recently returned from Orlando,FL USA on a Thomson package holiday. We flew out of Orlando Sanford International to Manchester International.

When we arrived at the Orlando Airport, for our flight scheduled @ 4:25pm, we were surprised to find it had been delayed till 10:30pm! Considering we had to already be there 3 hours early, we were looking at a 9-10 hour wait in a small airport.

This isn't completely relevant, but we were given a $20 voucher per person to be used in the airport. However half the airport's food facilities were closed and thus had to spend them in the expensive restaurant. Furthermore, we couldn't spend on gifts or alcoholic drinks and once a voucher was used, you didn't get the change back. So, order a burger @ $11, no change given back leaving it very difficult to get your monies worth from the vouchers.

Anyway, we eventually flew at around 10:30-10:40pm sticking us in the 6+ hours of delays with a very tired 4yr old and a 9yr old.

The reason given by the crew was that during that week, they were stuck in Costa Rica due to a tropical storm and thus couldn't get their flight to Miami. There were then further complications with flights in Miami preventing them to getting to Orlando on time. They eventually arrived in Orlando the morning on the flight, but due to regulations, they had to rest for a minimum amount of time before they could fly again for safety reasons (which I appreciate).

So, this sounds like they are trying to blame weather....but it wasn't the reason our flight was delayed. In my opinion, it's more logistics as the crew wasn't available. I appreciate that it can be quite a difficult problem to pull off but you would have imagined that thomson would have had a plan B consider the storm was on radar for over a week before hand.

I've checked out Vauban's guide.

'extraordinary circumstances' and 'all reasonable measures' can be interpreted in different ways. Therefore, this is a 'knock-on' effect of weather. So the question seems to stand with if the airline did everything they could and as quick as they could to prevent this issue.

So, I leave you guys with a couple of questions before I submit my claim:
1. Do you think i'm eligible for compensation?
2. From what I understand, I should go to Thomson first and if I get rejected, take it to CAA?


Thanks for all the help and advice!

Cheers,
David