Flight delay and cancellation compensation, Tui/Thomson ONLY

laticsforlife

Just had my defence letter from Tui saying that the defence (aside from all the standard bluff) is that a lightning strike did some sort of damage and parts were in Luton, and the flight went ahead once these had been fitted.

Which would be fine if that is what actually happened - as opposed to them flying in a 767 and us coming home on that 9 hours later, so not on any repaired plane at all.

I don't recall whether the plane was damaged on its way to Turkey or if it never took off in the first place from Manchester - perhaps I should trace the previous outgoing flight number on Flightstats to see whether it was delayed or not (as if it was struck in-flight then unless an emergency ensued, it would continue to Turkey and be stuck there broken).

EDIT - ok the previous flight was also delayed 9hrs so it wasn't my flight that was lightening hit, it was the outbound.

Does this type of 'fault' - a lightning strike, mean my case is extraordinary circumstances or not? or should they have parts in Turkey to fix this sort of thing that does happen regularly on planes.

LULU5779

blondmark wrote: »

Although that wouldn't be the end of the claim. When a claimant realises they've sued an incorrect party, they make (and pay for) an Application to substitute the defendant with the correct party, which is normally approved. Then the claimant crosses out the incorrect party in red and substitutes that name with the correct party, also in red - guidance on that is HERE.

I have double checked and i issued the claim to

TUI TRAVEL HOUSE
Crawley Business Quarter
Fleming Way
CRAWLEY
West Sussex

RH10 9QL

as the defendent with "Thomson" in the Particulars of Claim.

When they responded with Intend to defend they also changed the address to

TUI UK LTD
Customer Legal Services
Wigmore House
Wigmore Lane

Luton

with contact email

CUSTOMER.LEGAL@THOMSON.C

O.UK

do i still need to re issue of have thomson been kind to me??

bazaar_2

laticsforlife wrote: »

If you (likeI) have no boarding passes or good evidence of being on your flight, this might come in handy;

Ask Tui for a FOI request (or a Data Subject Access request). The way this is happening for me is I wrote a letter asking for my details for my delayed flight, and they then sent me a blank Data Subject Access form to fill in, and to send them a cheque for £10 for the privilege.

All well and good you say, but how does that prove I was on the flight; well one of the questions the form asks is "did you complete a Customer Service Questionnaire on the flight". Now my missus ALWAYS fills these in, (I can't be bothered!).

But of course they must log these and they are part of the data they hold and therefore must provide, and they prove you were on the flight.

My only concern is we cannot remember if they did provide the forms, as the 9hr delay kind-of asked for trouble in doing so, I can only hope they did and we put enough detail on it to identify us.

Anyhow this also lets you know that if you want a FOI request, then it will take longer than you think as they will have to send you the template form, and then you send it back with the £10 and they then have 40 days to respond.

I think you mean Subject Access not FOIJust ask them to prove you were not on the flight. You know your dates, if you have a bank statement showing you paid, it should be a small thing.
You could also use the CPR 31.16 to dig this out from them. ( If youve issued court proceedings against them). This would have to be done BEFORE your case is allocated to a track IE small claims track.

laticsforlife

bazaar wrote: »

I think you mean Subject Access not FOIJust ask them to prove you were not on the flight. You know your dates, if you have a bank statement showing you paid, it should be a small thing.
You could also use the CPR 31.16 to dig this out from them. ( If youve issued court proceedings against them). This would have to be done BEFORE your case is allocated to a track IE small claims track.

Indeed SAR not FOI.

That's the thing, I think we booked in-store as I have no emails from Tui. I have no idea how I paid (EDIT - I have now found the payment to Tui in June 2008 on my bank statements - god bless online banking for keeping them going back years).

As we were essentially a night-flight (because of the delay), so all we did was try and sleep so didn't buy anything either on the plane or in the virtually closed airport, so I am relying on the booking to prove I came home on that flight.

Hence why I did the SAR to see what they have on me.

maisbitt

I eventually received a reply from TUI a full 3 months after giving them notice.

As well as waxing lyrical about how good they’ve been in recent years with minimising delays etc, they have specified our delay cause:-
I can see from our internal airline reports that your flight was affected by a delay of 6 hours and 5 minutes, as a result of one of our aircraft within our Thomson Airways fleet experiencing an unforeseen medical emergency, which then caused a knock on effect to our flight schedule and a delay to your flight.
As part of EU regulations we have to look at the root cause of the delay to determine if compensation is due under this regulation and as explained above, the root cause of your delay was an unexpected medical emergency within our Thomson Airways fleet that caused a knock on effect to your flight. Therefore this delay is classed as Extraordinary Circumstances.

They then Quote Nelson vs Lufthansa and say: it’s important to note that “all reasonable measures” test applies to the occurrence of the EC and not the delay that may have been its effect.

They also use paragraph 14 of the regulation preamble to define “extraordinary circumstances” and then say: In the case of your flight, a delay was caused by a passenger became ill and required the aircraft to make an unscheduled landing in order that they may obtain medical attention. Clearly this is not thing.

The poor English in this letter is not a typo, I have quoted word-for-word.

So according to this letter they have admitted that my flight was a knock-on delay. There was an extraordinary circumstance, but not with my flight. I am of the understanding that the limitations of their fleet are not my concern and do not allow TUI to apportion an extraordinary circumstance on another flight as a valid reason to delay my flight without compensation. Am I correct in this assumption?

The plane that eventually took us from Newcastle to Mexico was previously on a flight from Orlando to Newcastle, which was itself delayed. At the point of checking in for our flight at Newcastle airport, the plane servicing our flight had not yet left Orlando. Our flight was therefore always going to be late as they had put no contingency in place. I think it is fair to assume that the Orlando to Newcastle flight itself was not even the flight with the unscheduled landing. It was probably the flight before that, if indeed it occurred at all with the plane that serviced my delayed flight.
In conclusion they admit that my flight was not directly affected by the “extraordinary circumstance” that is genuine for the flight it actually occurred on.

Time to go to court?
Who do I serve my claim to? It was a First Choice flight, but all correspondance has been between me and TUI at Wigmore House. Should I be specifying "First Choice Airways" (or some other name) at same address/different address?

Also my wife was named as lead passenger but I have done all the correspondance. Do I have the right to claim for us both or is it only the lead passenger that can act for additional party passengers?

Thanks in advance.:)

aytch

has anyone yet gone with a no win no fee company?

Basingstoke_Betty

jenn1ewest1 wrote: »

In need of a little advice on what to do next
I have received thomsons defence and I have returned the allocations questionaire along with the fees.Please can someone tell me when I need to present my defense to thomsons do I wait for it to go to court or do I need to present my defense beforehand all advice would be much appreciated
JH

Hello - we are at exactly the same stage - I have just spoken to MCOL who have said that once the court you have selected receives the case. your fee and the defence from Thomson, you will then be sent out further requests for information from the judge at your local court. SO essentially it is a waiting game from now on. Please remember that YOU are not presenting a defence at all. You will get the chance to answer their defence in a witness statement/questionaire later.
Wow - I feel dead chuffed that I finally have information to give to someone rather than just having to ask questions from the forum!
Good luck x

Basingstoke_Betty

Mark2spark wrote: »

I can't answer 3 & 4 in depth as they don't raise it as their defence.
I didn't go the court route myself so I only have limited input.

Hi - I pressed the 'thank you' button but wanted to say it properly - thank you for your help. BB

Danny03_2

Hi i was delayed for 17 hours in June 2012 for a flight from Manchester to Kos with Thomson meaning we flew the next day and lost a day of our holiday. We actually took off and was airbourne for at least an hour before having to make an emergency landing. We thought we would have a strong case for claiming compensation after our traumatic experience however after claiming several months ago, we today received a letter from Thomson stating that they WON'T be paying out as the fault with the engine which lead to our flight being cancelled wasn't their fault.

I find this hard to take as we lost a great proportion of our holiday and feel like they should be compensating us after what we went through.

What if anything at all would we be able to do about this decision as we don't want to take it lying down?

Vauban

Danny03 wrote: »

What if anything at all would we be able to do about this decision as we don't want to take it lying down?

Court, No Win No Fee, or keep writing to them to pass the time away. All in the FAQs on page one ...