Flight delay and cancellation compensation, Tui/Thomson ONLY

DTDfanBoy

dcostin wrote: »

Hi all

I have sent all details to Thomson, had the normal response around exceptional circumstances and now having made the initial contact and reading through the posts on here - hats off guys by the way, absolutley fantastic advice - I am not sure that I feel qualified enough, even with that advice, to be able to take this to court and legally argue the case. Is there a limitation on a time that this can be handed to a NWNF solicitor? I am sure I saw reference to this in a earlier post but cannot for the life of me find that post again. Pointer would be very appreciated. Thanks all.

The limit is currently six years, although Thomson are currently disputing this via Appeal and hope to lower the limit to two years in line with the Montreal Convention.

What were the circumstances around your delay, Thomson are currently settling claims before court. If you have a clear case for compensation and submit a well written claim, there is a good chance they will offer to settle.

NickyPower

I have sent my form off to the courts today!, Thanks for all of your help

dcostin

DTDfanBoy wrote: »

The limit is currently six years, although Thomson are currently disputing this via Appeal and hope to lower the limit to two years in line with the Montreal Convention.

What were the circumstances around your delay, Thomson are currently settling claims before court. If you have a clear case for compensation and submit a well written claim, there is a good chance they will offer to settle.

Hi DTDfanBoy

Delayed coming back from Cape Verde. Redirected to Gran Canaria where fault appeared with hold warning light coming on and not being able to turn it off again so we were stuck there for 5 hours.

Thomson letter that was returned listed "unexpected flight safety shortcomings" and stated that as this function did not form part of their normal safety checks that it would be held as "Extraordinary Circumstances" as in this case the problem has arisen outside of regular maintenance and not because of poor maintenance.

I am fully aware that this tactic is used by them regularly and do actually feel that I can argue this except for the fact that court processes seem extremely rigid and I would hate to not dot an "i" or cross a "t" and lose on a technicality. Suppose its the perception of court that is causing the slight fear. But as you have said, if the case is good then it may not get there. I will carry on with completing the paperwork. Thanks for the assistance. Starting to think I just need to grow some...:)

RM2013

JPears wrote: »

BUT that is the time shown on your ticket ie arrival time on ticket equals gate/block time?

As far as I’m concerned arrival time is at the gate, you can’t get off at the runway. the only airport in Britain that operate gate to gate timings is Birmingham, according to UK CAA


I found another website that you can obtain an app for free and I have found it to be very accurate.

FlightTrack http://www.mobiata.com/support/flighttrack-iphone . I compared it with Thomson’s own arrivals web page http://flights.thomson.co.uk/thomson/en-GB/arrivals/default and found it to be 99.9% identical on timings.

I e-mailed mobiata (something to do with Expedia) to ask if information gained from their app could be used in a court as they have an e-mail and Facebook function, answer, unfortunately NO as flight data information is obtained from FlightStats.

If you are worried about how long you were delayed why not try contacting Thomson and asking for the arrival data for the day in question.

RM2013

:jSuccess

Just received compensation today into my account.

Why
1. We were delayed 3 hours and 1 minute
2. I upgraded to Premium Economy only to be told 1 week from travel that return journey would be in economy, (due to technical reasons 3 weeks down the line????) virtually no apology nor compensation.
3. Our holiday had actually reduced in price by £500

I don’t have a guilty conscience, I paid nearly £3000 for our holiday and was appalled by our treatment.

The fact that we were delayed made me more determined to make something of this.

I went through the usual channels with Thomson to ask for delay compensation to no avail. So proceeded with a small claims with a Sheriffs court.
Applied to small claims court.

Thomson had a return by date to intimate 1 of 4 options.
1. Challenge the jurisdiction of the court
2. State a defence
3. State a counterclaim
4. Dispute the amount of the claim

Thomson decided for option 5. Ignore and it might go away.

However, this does not hold in any Scottish court, if they miss the return by date then the ruling is, generally, automatically found in the favour of the pursuer. No leeway given.

Therefore I was awarded Decree as craved and Thomson was ordered to pay my delay compensation plus interest and costs.

Would I have made any claim if I paid £ 36 for the flights or had been treated differently, probably not.

They are a big company and making mega profits from us.

For those that are in two minds.

Go for it and persevere.

xxLKxx_2

Hi,

Could someone please help with my claim. Our flight TOM4201 from Crete to Gatwick was delayed by 4 and a half hours in total. The pilot called in sick the evening before our flight was due to reach our departure airport. A replacement pilot had to be flown done from Manchester. Once the pilot had arrived we were then told that there was no fuel for the plane. This meant the plane that was due to fly us back to Gatwick was delayed on its way to us.

I have written to Thomson using the template provided by MSE. Today I received a reply stating:

"As part of our investigation I have checked our flight reports and can see your flight was delayed due to the sudden sickness of the flight captain prior to a previous scheduled flight. Another flight captain was sourced from an alternative airport. This then caused a knock on effect to your flight. Therefore the cause of this delays sits under extraordinary circumstances, as the sickness of a crew member and is not something that could have been foreseen"

There has been no mention of the lack of fuel and surely if the airline were aware the night before that the pilot was unavailable this could have been avoided?

Your advice would be greatly appreciated!

DTDfanBoy

RM2013 wrote: »

:jSuccess

Just received compensation today into my account.

Why
1. We were delayed 3 hours and 1 minute
2. I upgraded to Premium Economy only to be told 1 week from travel that return journey would be in economy, (due to technical reasons 3 weeks down the line????) virtually no apology nor compensation.
3. Our holiday had actually reduced in price by £500





Go for it and persevere.

Well done RM2013,

Now that you know the system you can also go back and claim the compensation you are due from Thomson for downgrading you.

Article 10



Upgrading and downgrading



1. If an operating air carrier places a passenger in a class

higher than that for which the ticket was purchased, it may not

request any supplementary payment.

2. If an operating air carrier places a passenger in a class

lower than that for which the ticket was purchased, it shall

within seven days, by the means provided for in Article 7(3),

reimburse

(a) 30 % of the price of the ticket for all flights of 1 500 kilometres

or less, or

(b) 50 % of the price of the ticket for all intra-Community

flights of more than 1 500 kilometres, except flights

between the European territory of the Member States and

the French overseas departments, and for all other flights

between 1 500 and 3 500 kilometres, or

(c) 75 % of the price of the ticket for all flights not falling

under (a) or (b), including flights between the European

territory of the Member States and the French overseas

departments.


Let us know how you get on :beer:

RM2013

DTDfanBoy wrote: »

Well done RM2013,

Now that you know the system you can also go back and claim the compensation you are due from Thomson for downgrading you.

Let us know how you get on :beer:

I believe that downgrading is a common occurrence with scheduled airlines as they tend to overbook, however, Thomson is a package holiday company and seat are purchased on a first come first served basis until they are all taken. I also believe I was given the correct amount of notice required before any other additional compensation was due.

This happened to a number of passengers on different fights and we all put it down to the Dreamliner not being in service and that the larger capacity aircraft were used in it place.

I was refunded the cost of the one way upgrade and the money was in my account that very same day. :T So they can pay your compensation quickly if they so wish.

I asked for my delay comp to be paid by electronic transfer, I wasn’t prepared to wait 21 days for a cheque and then have to wait another 5-7 days for it to clear.

DTDfanBoy

RM2013 wrote: »

I believe that downgrading is a common occurrence with scheduled airlines as they tend to overbook, however, Thomson is a package holiday company and seat are purchased on a first come first served basis until they are all taken. I also believe I was given the correct amount of notice required before any other additional compensation was due.

This happened to a number of passengers on different fights and we all put it down to the Dreamliner not being in service and that the larger capacity aircraft were used in it place.

I was refunded the cost of the one way upgrade and the money was in my account that very same day. :T So they can pay your compensation quickly if they so wish.

I asked for my delay comp to be paid by electronic transfer, I wasn’t prepared to wait 21 days for a cheque and then have to wait another 5-7 days for it to clear.

Each to their own, the only real question is was the upgrade purchased and ticketed, what does the E-ticket they sent you say.

The fact that it was a package holiday has no bearing, you are still due 75% of the ticket price, obviously only the flight component not the entire package. The fact that they informed you in advance is also irrelevant, you either flew in the class you purchased or not.

There is no capacity in the regulation for them to limit your rights by giving advance notice, or refunding the upgrade fee, they can't even claim extraordinary circumstances

I received over £4,000 from Singapore Airlines after being bumped down to business on a leg from UK-NZ, the problem was the same as yours, namely a differently configured aircraft was used. It was a lovely bonus which was made even better as I didn't actually pay for the flight in question :beer:

They did need to be prompted into paying the full amount, the cheeky beggars tried to claim it was only 75% of the LHR-SIN price, which they paid fairly promptly in Singapore, the regulation is quite clear that it is the ticketed price that counts, in my case the E-ticket was LHR-SIN-AKL-SIN-LHR :j So despite only being downgraded for just over 1/4 of the journey, I received 75% off the entire trip. Unlike my dealings with Thomson to date, this was a simple letter writing exercise, two letters later and the outstanding amount I requested was paid :T

Gorbar

xxLKxx wrote: »

Hi,

Could someone please help with my claim. Our flight TOM4201 from Crete to Gatwick was delayed by 4 and a half hours in total. The pilot called in sick the evening before our flight was due to reach our departure airport. A replacement pilot had to be flown done from Manchester. Once the pilot had arrived we were then told that there was no fuel for the plane. This meant the plane that was due to fly us back to Gatwick was delayed on its way to us.

I have written to Thomson using the template provided by MSE. Today I received a reply stating:

"As part of our investigation I have checked our flight reports and can see your flight was delayed due to the sudden sickness of the flight captain prior to a previous scheduled flight. Another flight captain was sourced from an alternative airport. This then caused a knock on effect to your flight. Therefore the cause of this delays sits under extraordinary circumstances, as the sickness of a crew member and is not something that could have been foreseen"

There has been no mention of the lack of fuel and surely if the airline were aware the night before that the pilot was unavailable this could have been avoided?

Your advice would be greatly appreciated!

Ryanair paid us for pilot sickness