Flight delay and cancellation compensation, Tui/Thomson ONLY

Bonters

aytch wrote: »

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

Yes, I have. It's been a bit of a rocky road, but I'm getting there. They firstly rejected my claim on the basis of weather, which actually did not affect my flight. However, I happened upon a guy I've met a few times at boxing events, and it turns out he's a lawyer who is specialising in this stuff at present. He took up my cause and had a look. He's confident it should be a goer and has taken it up personally, also moving mine to the top and it's going at a pace currently. Lucky find really, the no win no fee companies are not always all they should be and they will stick to a strict percentage guide in deciding which cases they accept. Mine did not satisfy that percentage first off but it's become a case of not what you know but who you know! Shouldn't be that way, but I argued with their original decision (politely, you understand) but they wouldn't budge. Now, with the help of my lawyer friend (and the promise of loadsa beer at the next event we meet at), I've re-registered my claim, it's immediately accepted and all the paperwork's about done. They end up keeping 27% of the award if successful plus 25 Euros per person admin fee. It's a hefty chunk, I know, but I'd rather have their muscle in my case than take it myself. AND he may be able to negotiate me something off the 25 Euros per person, but no promises. Nudge, wink. Another thing with this firm, they pay all Court fees and do not ask me to pay them, which is fairly unusual I believe. I'll gladly update with any progress.

fergiedee

Centipede100 wrote: »

I am starting this thread for those claiming flight delay or cancellation compensation from Thomson.

Any posts regarding any other airline in this thread will be ignored (at least by me).

I wrote to Thompson's in March 2013 for claim for delay in May 2011,larnaca to Manchester in excess of 5 hours. they have not responded at all. over the period I have sent 4 reminders by post and two emails to customer services and another to this corporate. I tried CAA but they can't do anything cause the flight is ex Cyprus not uk. what next?

romanby1

fergiedee wrote: »

I wrote to Thompson's in March 2013 for claim for delay in May 2011,larnaca to Manchester in excess of 5 hours. they have not responded at all. over the period I have sent 4 reminders by post and two emails to customer services and another to this corporate. I tried CAA but they can't do anything cause the flight is ex Cyprus not uk. what next?

The same happened to me. In the end I went to the Small Claims Court and 3 weeks before the court date they settled.
Issue NBA letter.

laticsforlife

Omg, I don't believe the quality of their defence.

1. Letter dated 11th May 2013 instead of 11th June.

2. Letter says delayed flight claim TOM4659, Palma - Gatwick, errr no TOM2140 Antalya -Manchester, so all they've done is copy and paste my name onto someone else's letter, lazy ba....

3. Flight number in point 2 of defence is now TOM1240 instead of 2140, and quoted as 06/09/08, when it actually flew on 07/09/08 (semantics maybe, but it is a past tense sentence saying they 'operated' a flight).

4. The claimant is required to prove that SHE travelled on the flight. Errr I'm a bloke.

5. "The defect was found prior to the departure of the flight in question" -except that the outgoing flight that became ours was delayed also by 9hrs so it wasn't a fault on our flight at all.

6. By far the biggest lie is their unforeseen le technical fault argument.

They say that lightening struck the plane damaging the randome (which is the radar cover), the winglets and fuselage ON FLIGHT TOM2140.

But I already know it wasn't our plane that was hit, because that plane didn't come at all, an unscheduled 767 came to us after its journey from somewhere long haul into manchester.

Then they say the nearest parts were in Luton, the airline did all they could to rectify the situation and arranged to source the new parts. As soon as the parts were replaced the flight went ahead.

Again this is total lies, as it wasn't the same plane that was struck that carried us.


Ok rant over.

Now what? I cannot see anything that I am supposed to do on MCOL. Their defence is now on there from yesterday.

stavros42

laticsforlife wrote: »

Omg, I don't believe the quality of their defence.

1. Letter dated 11th May 2013 instead of 11th June.

2. Letter says delayed flight claim TOM4659, Palma - Gatwick, errr no TOM2140 Antalya -Manchester, so all they've done is copy and paste my name onto someone else's letter, lazy ba....

3. Flight number in point 2 of defence is now TOM1240 instead of 2140, and quoted as 06/09/08, when it actually flew on 07/09/08 (semantics maybe, but it is a past tense sentence saying they 'operated' a flight).

4. The claimant is required to prove that SHE travelled on the flight. Errr I'm a bloke.

5. "The defect was found prior to the departure of the flight in question" -except that the outgoing flight that became ours was delayed also by 9hrs so it wasn't a fault on our flight at all.

6. By far the biggest lie is their unforeseen le technical fault argument.

They say that lightening struck the plane damaging the randome (which is the radar cover), the winglets and fuselage ON FLIGHT TOM2140.

But I already know it wasn't our plane that was hit, because that plane didn't come at all, an unscheduled 767 came to us after its journey from somewhere long haul into manchester.

Then they say the nearest parts were in Luton, the airline did all they could to rectify the situation and arranged to source the new parts. As soon as the parts were replaced the flight went ahead.

Again this is total lies, as it wasn't the same plane that was struck that carried us.


Ok rant over.

Now what? I cannot see anything that I am supposed to do on MCOL. Their defence is now on there from yesterday.

Well if it was me I would be starting to count my money now. The total incompetence of this company truly astounds me as was in my case against them.

Vauban

laticsforlife wrote: »

Omg, I don't believe the quality of their defence. ...Ok rant over.

Now what? I cannot see anything that I am supposed to do on MCOL. Their defence is now on there from yesterday.

Brilliant result for you. Now you sit pretty. You will get your Allocation Questionnaire in due course, where you will say that you want to have the claim heard on the small claims track and in your local court. And you'll tick the box for mediation - but that will come to nought. Eventually (in a few months, I should add) you will get a date for your court appearance, and then you will be asked to submit a bundle of documents, including your witness statement. This is when you go to town ...

Patience, grasshopper!

Basingstoke_Betty

Vauban wrote: »

Brilliant result for you. Now you sit pretty. You will get your Allocation Questionnaire in due course, where you will say that you want to have the claim heard on the small claims track and in your local court. And you'll tick the box for mediation - but that will come to nought. Eventually (in a few months, I should add) you will get a date for your court appearance, and then you will be asked to submit a bundle of documents, including your witness statement. This is when you go to town ...

Patience, grasshopper!

Quickie question - I'm about to send off my allocation questionnaire - I have ticked 'no' to mediation because I tried so hard to sort it out with them in the first place and they made it clear that they were going to ignore my points. Should I tick 'yes' as it shows willing? Bit reluctant but will accept the advice of the forum or those who are further ahead in the process than me.

Vauban

Basingstoke_Betty wrote: »

Quickie question - I'm about to send off my allocation questionnaire - I have ticked 'no' to mediation because I tried so hard to sort it out with them in the first place and they made it clear that they were going to ignore my points. Should I tick 'yes' as it shows willing? Bit reluctant but will accept the advice of the forum or those who are further ahead in the process than me.

It is a bit of a waste of time - but there is advantage in showing the judge that you have taken every opportunity to try to stop this coming to court. Consensus is tick - search "mediation" for others stories.

laticsforlife

My son just remembered that he secretly filmed our landing at manchester, and he posted this to YouTube in 2008.

http://youtu.be/zsNr7TWD2_4

Whilst its no absolute proof of our being on the flight,it does show one or two things,

A) it has no winglets that were supposedly damaged by lightning, so it can't be the plane that was damaged, thus it's wasn't our flight
it shows Concorde which is at Manchester
C) the pilot announces our arrival in Manchester, and the time as about 9.40 which matches Flightstats data.

Seeing as a civil court only needs the balance of probabilities, I think our case has just got a little stronger.

Tomisoc

Cheque for £1,042.05 received on 8 June.

This flight was subjected to approx. 9½ delay for ‘technical reasons’ and my wife and I had the usual night in the uncomfortable check-in area. It was scheduled to leave at 2250 and finally left at about 0815 the next morning. We didn’t experience bad treatment at Gatwick – it was just non-existent and left us incandescent. As soon as I got home, I complained in writing, including a request for compensation and had the standard fobbing off. I contacted the CAA, who eventually advised that it did seem that I had a case, but to leave any legal action until after the Sturgeon case in October 2012.

Notes on the Claim:

I tried to complete the on-line claim form, but the Particulars of Claim page seemed to be missing, so I used the paper version instead.

Apparently I should have named Thomson Airways Ltd. (at the Luton address) as the Defendant instead of TUI UK Ltd., although I would not worry too much about this if you have already submitted your claim.

The claim was served on 17 January and Thomson’s had until 31 January to reply. They made no response, so a Default Judgement in my favour was made on 12 February. Then – surprise, surprise! On 6 March they made an Application to ‘set aside’ the judgement (i.e. go back to the 17 January) on the grounds that they had ‘a real prospect of successfully defending the claim’ and that ‘the application has been made promptly’. Apart from the hearing date, I received no details of their defence from my local County Court and only received these after writing to the Court.

Thomson’s Defence

In a nutshell, they were claiming the technical defect was, as usual, due to extraordinary circumstances. I will spell out the details as I guess they may be of interest to many readers:

Two full days before our flight, a hydraulic leak was discovered on our aircraft, G-DBLA. It took 1hr 15min to diagnose and then 22hr to fly-in a technician and spare parts from the UK (we do not know where the aircraft was). It then took 1hr 15min to carry out the repair. They then had 25hr 15min (plus, possibly, a time-difference in their favour) to get the aircraft in position for our flight. Remember, I did not have any of these details until well after Court proceedings had started.

They were going to use the Wallentin-Hermann v Alitalia case to show that if any fault develops after an aircraft has been maintained correctly, then it must be extraordinary.

The Set Aside Hearing, County Court 16 May

Thomson’s sent a barrister who gave me a copy of the Nelson v TUI and others case, which he wanted to use but had not been mentioned at all in their Application.

Their case was shot apart. I argued that a leak of this nature was ‘standard fare’ for Thomson Airways and not extraordinary at all - it was how they responded to it that mattered. They had not explained why parts and technicians were not available locally, wherever that was. They had also not explained why the aircraft could not have been brought back to Gatwick in a period of more than 25hr.

The lady Judge refused to allow the original Judgement to be set aside and furthermore refused the barrister leave to appeal as the defence was so “full of holes”.

Conclusions

The Set Aside hearing was to all intents and purposes the real thing but had by-passed the usual Court procedures such as Allocation Questionnaires, etc. - I cannot really complain about this.

One of the Rulings of the Wallentin-Hermann v Alitalia case goes directly against their argument and is worth spelling out here:

3. The fact that an air carrier has complied with the minimum rules on maintenance of an aircraft cannot in itself suffice to establish that that carrier has taken ‘all reasonable measures’ within the meaning of Article 5(3) of Regulation No 261/2004 and, therefore, to relieve that carrier of its obligation to pay compensation provided for by Articles 5(1)(c) and 7(1) of that regulation.

What should Thomson’s (and other airlines) learn from all this?

That they cannot go on ignoring the law just because they don’t like it. The lady judge in Hull actually made a very profound comment at the end of the hearing:

You may not like this Regulation and I may not be completely comfortable with it, but my job is just to apply the law as it stands.

And what about me?

I actually have some sympathy with Thomson’s over this Regulation in that compensation can be out of proportion. All the airlines must have been fast asleep when the Regulations were first drafted prior to 2004. Note that new proposals which should strike a fairer balance between the interests of passengers and those of airlines are scheduled to come into effect from next year. However, I have no sympathy with their dogged refusal to accept any responsibility and not even offer us a pie and a pint (should we have wanted this in the middle of the night!). This is what is getting peoples’ backs up and I’m afraid now looks like it is going to bite them back very hard.

That is why in March 2011 I offered Thomson’s the opportunity to pay £200 each to my wife and me for a “quick settlement”. Of course, they did not respond.

I do not feel any sense of victory. They made me do some damned hard work which took quite a few hours – my compensation would effectively be far less if I costed this at a professional rate. On this forum, there are people apparently starting claims of up to six years old. I really have to question their motivation if they were not incensed enough at the time to send off complaints. This is just being part of the compensation culture. If, on the other hand, they have been fuming all this time and had claims repeatedly rejected, then they should stop all this conjecture on reasons for delay (which they just don’t have anyway) and get on with the claim! At worst, if they lose they could claim costs on the grounds that only legal action produced the necessary details for the delay.