Flight delay and cancellation compensation, Tui/Thomson ONLY

DebnGraeme10

Hi, i posted on here a month ago, this was my original post,
Hi, we have been reading through all the posts for help and advice and we are wondering what to do now. We were delayed from Geneva for 24 hours in January 2013, this was due to the airport being cleared of snow which took an hour, then sitting on the plane a further 3 hours until the pilot went over his flying time which he told us was a maximum of 13 hours. he tried to get a replacement pilot to fly us home but there was none available so we were took off the plane and put in a hotel over night then 24 hours later we eventually flew home. We sent a claim letter to Thomson on 27th January 2013, got the standard letter back that this was received but heard nothing more. My husband phoned Thomson 2 weeks ago and was told the letter had been received ( i knew it had as i sent it special delivery) but nothing more had been done, no updates or notes regarding our claim was on file and was told basically they had nothing to inform us at this point. The delayed flight was on 19th January 2013 and after reading here how long Thomson are taking, do we send another letter or just fill in a court claim now? :mad:

UPDATE. we have received a letter today from basically saying we are not entitled to any compensation due to EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCES. a paragraph from the leeter says;
We can see from our internal flight records that your flight was initially delayed as a result of heavy snow in Geneva causing problems with the arrival of your aircraft. The airfield was then closed and the crew did not have the sufficient hours to fly by the time the airfield reopened. 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 in the case of your flight the result was a case of extreme weather conditions. !!!!!!!!. this is not true. there was no snow at 9am when we had to check in. our flight was due to leave at 11.20am but the flight did not arrive from Newcastle until 2pm due to delay at Newcastle. It started snowing at 2.30, 3ish and we were taken onto the plane at 3.20pm. Flights were taking off and we were in a queue. Once we got to the top of the runway to take off ( this was at 6.30pm being on the plane from 3.20pm ) the airport was tempory closed while they cleared snow from the runway which took approx 1 hour so we taxied off the runway and sat on the plane for another hour waiting) at 7.30pm the pilot came out and announched he would not be able to fly us home due to him now being over his 13 hour limit but was contacting Thomson for another pilot to fly the plane back to Newcastle. 30 mins later he came out again to say they were unable to get another crew so we would have to leave the plance, collect all our luggage and this was 4 bags of heavy ski gear and go to a hotel. Do i have a case against them please as i dont know what to do now ( when we left for the hotel, the airport was open and flights were taking off again)

Bettine

I know the date of the flights especially the delayed flight back to the uk, but I have no paper evidence, can i find out flight no's etc? What evidence is required to claim?

Caz3121

Bettine wrote: »

I know the date of the flights especially the delayed flight back to the uk, but I have no paper evidence, can i find out flight no's etc? What evidence is required to claim?

try reading the FAQs, there is information there about getting flight numbers etc and if you read this thread you will see what you need to submit

Bonters

Centipede100 wrote: »

You can play whatever advocate you wish but the case blondmark has quoted is the law on this particular issue since the ECJ is the ultimate arbiter on EU law. No UK ruling can or will overrule this judgment.

It is not 'untried' either since the issue was an appeal to the ECJ for clarification on the narrow point at issue.

Hope this finally puts this particular question into context for you.

I think you actually missed the point I was making, but fair enough anyway. I want it to be 6 years, otherwise my case is time barred, albeit I registered a claim within 2 years but could not progress it because of the general appeal hearing, which was not resolved until late last year.

markavo1

rajivsingh100 wrote: »

Hello. I d really like to get people's advice/view on our dilemma.
We were delayed by 25 hrs by thomson on a trip to the maldives at manchester. They told us that they had diverted the flight to caribbean to pick up people stuck there because another plane had broken down. Clearly a hard nosed business decision for them but we lost 1 day of our holiday which was a late honeymoon. Two years later and some 5 letters later, they continue to deny our claim and I spoke to someone at Tui customer service and they confirmed that their legal dept has drafted a reply that they are sending to everyone to deny all claims! I think the only recourse now is to go to small claims court. Is this likely to be throwing good money after bad. i cant believe that I watch tv and see people who are getting 100s or even 1000s fro a delay of a few hrs and we re being denied a loss of 1/7th of our holiday!
Their last letter also claims that the flight was delayed as the plane was faulty. This is clearly at odds with what their own staff admitted at the time but we have no proof. Surely airlines could just claim that all their flights were just "extraordinarily delayed" as we customers have no proof that it was their mishandling.
Anyway, what do readers think? I d really welcome advice as o whether to pursue further or give it up?
We ve copied CAA/AUC into the letters but they have a huge backlog and tell us they cant speed anything up. Should we be waiting for them to actually respond first.
Much obliged to all.

Rajiv

I think you are in an exceptionally strong position, somewhat stronger than some people on this forum, because there is settled case law which almost mimics your case, albeit the cause of delay etc are slightly different. Look up the Finnair Oyj. v. Timy Lassooy case. The court in this case ruled that a business decision to divert the claimants aircraft, to minimize a delay to another persons flight, cannot form extraordinary circumstances for your flight, irregardless of whether extraordinary circumstances existed for the passengers that your aircraft went to rescue. I would take them to court without a shadow of a doubt. They would be forced to produce evidence as to the delay affecting your flight, and clearly if what you were originally told was true, they don't have a leg to stand on. Even if that wasn't true, and your plane was delayed by a technical fault directly to your flight, as you will find in these forums, technical faults are very unlikely to constitute exceptional circumstances. The Friederike Wallentin-Hermann v Alitalia case gives 2 examples of when it would be likely that technical faults will fall within extraordinary circumstances

"26. However, it cannot be ruled out that technical problems are covered by those exceptional circumstances to the extent that they stem from events which are not inherent in the normal exercise of the activity of the air carrier concerned and are beyond its actual control. That would be the case, for example, in the situation where it was revealed by the manufacturer of the aircraft comprising the fleet of the air carrier concerned, or by a competent authority, that those aircraft, although already in service, are affected by a hidden manufacturing defect which impinges on flight safety. The same would hold for damage to aircraft caused by acts of sabotage or terrorism."

I think it is quite clear from the above, that the threshold for claiming extraordinary circumstances in technical problems is high, and not just because a part on the plane fails!

Go for it, contrary to popular belief, the whole process of taking the airline to Court will cost you less than £200 from start to finish. There's plenty of help on these forums for doing it and I would imagine that Thomson will settle a lot of these before reaching Court

koradma

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. We made a claim against Thomson for compensation after reading on MSE.

Official Reason: Passenger sick on previous flight 21 Dec 2010

Delay: 12.5 hours (rerouted via Manchester and coach to Gatwick)

Additional circumstance: We werent offered an option to cancel or not board the flight as they claimed the bags have already been loaded into the flight and there is no way we can not fly that day. We were also told take it or leave it flight even though we said we will leave the next day. We were denied any meals on the 5 hour+ flight, we could have purchased food had we known this before boarding the flight.

Impact: Lost a day at work, travelled with 2 young kids (4 & 1) without any food on the 5 hour flight.

Their final rejection email response was
"As I previously explained, the flight which you were originally meant to be on was diverted to Athens due to a medical emergency on board. As you can appreciate this was something we couldn't predict, and was completely out of our control. Our priority was to ensure the safe return of all passengers. I genuinely feel my investigation and response to the points you have raised, is fair and acknowledges the matters you were unhappy with.

Therefore I won't be offering any further compensation. The holiday voucher was sent to you as a sincere apology for the inconvenience this caused."

See compensation offered and rejected by us from an earlier email.

"As the delay was completely out of our control, I'm unable to offer you the compensation requested. However, I would like to send you our holiday voucher for £50.00 (fifty pounds) as a gesture of goodwill for any inconvenience caused."

My final email response upon their final rejection.

"I am extremely disappointed with your response and compensation being offered is no where near the terms as laid out in EU Regulation 261/2004.
...
You have now left me with no choice but to take this to the next level. We will be reporting this to Air Transport Users Council. "

My questions are thus

Do I write to CAA? or go to small claims? Do i even need to contact Thomson to give them another chance?

Read from the posts that this does not count as an EC as they should have alternate flights, which they did but the delay was still over 12 hours. Am I eligible for a claim of 600 Euros given the distance and delay time?

Where can I find successful court action against Thomson so far?

Newbee

Thanks to centipede and mark2spark and others for sharing the information. Much appreciated.

allanlr

Myself, family and friends were delayed 22hrs November 2012. We were kept hanging about at the airport until 17.30 before being told our flight was cancelled. We were bus'ed out to various hotels and picked up the next morning, when we flew out at 10.00. We were given a letter of apology with the reason of the delay being a "technical fault" so we could claim on our insurance. Our flight was from Manchester to Holguin, Cuba. On our return i wrote to Thomson, they sent their own forms to complete, with passport photo's, boarding cards etc. I duly completed them all and returned them to Thomson. I had a reply last week stating that our plane had developed a fuel leak on its way to UK, they had not been able to fix it in readiness for the outbound flight leading to our delay. As this was an unforseen fault it comes under extraordinary circumstances and therefore my claim is rejected!!
I contacted the person who had sent the letter to ask for further explanation, but was told that is their final decision and no further action would be taken. I informed her that I would write to the CAA to which she replied, fine but your'e wasting your time.
Surely this can not be right. They had almost 48hrs to either repair the fault or get another plane. I feel disgusted and will never use Thomson/First Choice again. Can someone advise if I have a valid case please.

leylandsunaddict

How come it was 48 hours they had to repair it? Presumably the aircraft only arrived in an hour or so before you were due to take off?

Prof_Ligate

Bonters wrote: »

I think you actually missed the point I was making, but fair enough anyway. I want it to be 6 years, otherwise my case is time barred, albeit I registered a claim within 2 years but could not progress it because of the general appeal hearing, which was not resolved until late last year.

The time limit issue is already in statute so doesn't need to be tested in a UK court.

Limitation Act 1980 Section 9 states a 6 year time limit for claims brought under an enactment.

EU261 is an enactment so the period is 6 years.

The November EU ruling essentially clarifies that the possible exception on which Thomson want to rely (Montreal convention 2 year limit for other type of damages claims) has no bearing on this type of compensation claim.

MGOR

Finally received the expected rejection letter to my claim made in late December for a 24 hour delay from Sharm in 2011. They have claimed unexpected flight safety shortcomings which thus was an extraodinary circumstance. The cause given was both headsets failed and they only had 1 spare thus unable to fly. Thoughts on whether this would be an 'extraordinary circumstance?

In addition to 3 pages of drivel supporting their view there was an interesting comment in the letter at the end 'observing the purpose and spirit of the regulation and doing so while continuing to deliver real value to our customers is a challenge that can only be met by applying the rules robustly and not making payments where the delay is not our fault. Were we not to apply the rules in the way that we must prices would need to rise for you and all other customers.'

I've referred the matter to the CAA to seek their views and then onto Court.