Flight delay and cancellation compensation, Tui/Thomson ONLY

spaceaarvark

Money_girl wrote: »

Hi there!

My flight was delayed for about 7 hours. LONDON- CANCUN. The original departure time was 9.15am. It has departed past 4pm the same day. We ere given £7 voucher to spend on food. I went to the THOMAS COOK counter to ask for more vouchers (as you can have only a coffee and a muffin for £7. We stayed at the airport from 7am to 4pm, therefore I thought £7 was a joke. The compensation was highly inappropriate considering the length of the delay. The customer service staff was rude. We argued loudly. My phone's battery was dead at that minute so I requested to make a phone call to Thomas Cook emergency line. They refused me a phone call. I am entitled to 2 free phone calls, right?Also please comment on the amount of money provided. £7 for a day in the airport? Do you think this is enough for the meals and refreshments from 7am to 4pm?).
Anyway, my case seems to be very straightforward. The LON-CUN flight delayed by 7 hours due to technical issues (something to do with the plane). Do you think my claim will succeed?

Thanks a lot!

1. You should not confuse what happened at the airport with whether you are entitled to compensation for the delay.
2. You can't really expect meals and refreshments from 7am if your flight was due to take off at 9:15am.
3. Was this Thomson or Thomas Cook? You have posted your questions in the Thomson thread, but you went to the Thomas Cook desk.
4. Whether you are entitled to compensation depends on how long ago this was and by how much your arrival (not take off) was delayed.
5. In all probability the airline will claim exceptional circumstances for the delay. Whether you succeed in getting compensation will then depend on how far you are prepared to push.

Caz3121

Money_girl wrote: »

We ere given £7 voucher to spend on food. I went to the THOMAS COOK counter to ask for more vouchers (as you can have only a coffee and a muffin for £7. We stayed at the airport from 7am to 4pm, therefore I thought £7 was a joke. The compensation was highly inappropriate considering the length of the delay.

£7 for a day in the airport? Do you think this is enough for the meals and refreshments from 7am to 4pm?).

Refreshments are to be given if the delay is expected to be more than 4 hours (for your length of journey) which means if it had been going at 13:00, you would have had no entitlement and by your calculations that would have been 6 hours at the airport with nothing given (and nothing due)
The £7 voucher you could see as to cover the additional delay from 13:00 - 16:00....3 hours

pyjamafan

Hi everyone

I have finally received a reply from TUI - 2 months after sending my letter of complaint.

They have refused my claim saying that the delay was not their fault as the airport authority closed the runway due to a spillage.

As far as I know this is true but after a very short closure most other flights seemed to be taking off with just a short delay whereas ours was delayed for several hours.

Does anyone know if it would still be worth me fighting this? I accept that we maybe should have had a short delay like most other people on that day for safety reasons but ours was excessive. Is this a good enough reason to claim or will the fact that the root cause of the delay was justified go against me?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

maghater

Money_girl wrote: »

Hi there!

My flight was delayed for about 7 hours. LONDON- CANCUN. The original departure time was 9.15am. It has departed past 4pm the same day. We ere given £7 voucher to spend on food. I went to the THOMAS COOK counter to ask for more vouchers (as you can have only a coffee and a muffin for £7. We stayed at the airport from 7am to 4pm, therefore I thought £7 was a joke. The compensation was highly inappropriate considering the length of the delay. The customer service staff was rude. We argued loudly. My phone's battery was dead at that minute so I requested to make a phone call to Thomas Cook emergency line. They refused me a phone call. I am entitled to 2 free phone calls, right?Also please comment on the amount of money provided. £7 for a day in the airport? Do you think this is enough for the meals and refreshments from 7am to 4pm?).
Anyway, my case seems to be very straightforward. The LON-CUN flight delayed by 7 hours due to technical issues (something to do with the plane). Do you think my claim will succeed?

Thanks a lot!

You don't want to confuse lack of food vouchers, with a right to claim 600 Euros each for a delay over 4 hours on your flight (assuming it was in the last 6 years), I would forget about the vouchers, and concentrate on making a claim under EC 261. Did the airline provide you with a written notice setting out the rules for compensation, and assistance available ? probably not. By denying you 2 telephone calls, they are already in breach of the regulations, sounds more like Thomas Cook than Thomsons to me.
The first thing you want to do is contact the airline concerned, and make a request for compensation under EC 261/2004, Centipede 100 has done an excellent template letter, which you will find on the first page of several of these threads, (certainly the Thomas Cook one). Send it off, the airline will probably deny your claim, but they must give you a reason for it, and that is when the fun starts.

missy.p_3

I called Thompson last week after waiting the 56 days (+ another week for good measure) since completing their Claim form for a 3 hour+ delay to Florida in August 2012. They apologised & advised that 56 days was a guideline & that they are currently dealing with claims that they have had for 70 days (10 weeks)
I'll be interested to see what their reply is after all this time

Ich_2

As far as I know this is true but after a very short closure most other flights seemed to be taking off with just a short delay whereas ours was delayed for several hours.

It could be a number of reasons caused by the runway closure

Flights departing could have been those on time but any delayed flights may have lost their ATC slots so would have had to wait for one

Money_girl

spaceaarvark wrote: »

1. You should not confuse what happened at the airport with whether you are entitled to compensation for the delay.
2. You can't really expect meals and refreshments from 7am if your flight was due to take off at 9:15am.
3. Was this Thomson or Thomas Cook? You have posted your questions in the Thomson thread, but you went to the Thomas Cook desk.
4. Whether you are entitled to compensation depends on how long ago this was and by how much your arrival (not take off) was delayed.
5. In all probability the airline will claim exceptional circumstances for the delay. Whether you succeed in getting compensation will then depend on how far you are prepared to push.

Thanks a lot, spaceaarvark!

2. Ok, I can't expect meals and refreshments from 7am. But what about the delay period from 9.15am to 4pm? Certainly you would need to eat breakfast and lunch during this time! £7 is not enough for this period of delay and that's the end of it. Anyways, as you advised I will concentrate on the compensation.
3. It was Thomas Cook. Sorry for posting it in the wrong thread.
4. This has happened a couple of weeks ago. The flight arrived to Cancun 7 hours later than a scheduled time.

Money_girl

maghater wrote: »

You don't want to confuse lack of food vouchers, with a right to claim 600 Euros each for a delay over 4 hours on your flight (assuming it was in the last 6 years), I would forget about the vouchers, and concentrate on making a claim under EC 261. Did the airline provide you with a written notice setting out the rules for compensation, and assistance available ? probably not. By denying you 2 telephone calls, they are already in breach of the regulations, sounds more like Thomas Cook than Thomsons to me.
The first thing you want to do is contact the airline concerned, and make a request for compensation under EC 261/2004, Centipede 100 has done an excellent template letter, which you will find on the first page of several of these threads, (certainly the Thomas Cook one). Send it off, the airline will probably deny your claim, but they must give you a reason for it, and that is when the fun starts.

Thanks very much, maghater!
It was Thomas Cook. They gave me a letter with information but nothing about the assistance available or compensation.
Thanks for the advices. I can't wait to get a reply from them. What can be exceptional circumstances when it was a simple technical issue with the plane? :mad: It was the only flight delayed that long on the day. Some other flights to Europe were delayed by 1 or 2 hours but not 7!

Tash14_2

I have finally had a response to my letter of claim and as I guessed the same standard rejection response that others seemed to have recieved; i.e my claim "Falls outside Extraordinary Circumstances and therefore compensation is not payable".

Two issues here worry me.

1. It would be interesting to see how many claimaints recieve this standard rejection letter. If as I suspect all will recieve the same, this does flag up safety fears as the word "Technical defect" keeps popping up.

Are Thomson saying that they are ferrying passengers around the world on a defective fleet?

2. I was advised in my letter that my delay was to a country I have never ever visited or booked to travel to.

Strange this, however I have now lodged a claim against Thompson and this rejection letter is key in proving that my actual claim for delay was never investigated as if it was, Thomson would have got the travel destination correct, bearing in mind I provided all the documentation as requested by them.

SimonD316

Tash14 wrote: »

I have finally had a response to my letter of claim and as I guessed the same standard rejection response that others seemed to have recieved; i.e my claim "Falls outside Extraordinary Circumstances and therefore compensation is not payable".

IIRC if they have said it's NOT Extraordinary Circumstances then compensation should be payable, it's only when the reason IS Extraordinary Circumstances that they can wriggle out?