Flight delay and cancellation compensation, Tui/Thomson ONLY

111KAB

I therefore believe Thomson are responsible for your flight delay. Start off by using one of the no win no fee websites to check (for free) whether they believe you are entitled to compensation. Then read Vauban's Guide so as to understand the claim alternatives etc. Then decide whether to front claim yourself (DIY) or use a NWNF. Finally (some time later) enjoy your compensation.

Ian011

Gunny wrote: »

I hope to see you travelling with Thomson Airways in the near future and should you wish to look into booking with us, then please visit us online or please call on 0844 871 0871.

Ofcom regulations effective 1 July 2015 require all users of 084, 087, 09 and 118 numbers to declare the Service Charge 'in close proximity to the number, everywhere it is advertised or promoted'. It is missing here.

While they are no longer allowed to use them for post-sales helplines, when will travel companies wake up to the fact that using premium rate numbers for sales lines is a well-known 'sales prevention technique'?

dorsetc

I would appreciate some advice if anyone has any on this one.
We (5 of us) had a 5 hour delay from Gatwick to Montego Bay back in August. I went through Resolver and heard nothing at all, kept escalating it and still nothing. I then went to the CAA who took it on. I got an email from them back in December saying that Thomson had agreed to pay us the compensation and would contact us to arrange payment. Since then nothing from Thomson and they ignore all my emails. Is the email from the CAA enough to prove they have agreed to pay up if we have to go to court?
Thanks in advance.

111KAB

CAA, their letter and their email, are useless, worthless and toothless however their siding with you is better than them siding with Thomson. You have valid claim .... read Vauban's Guide ...... issue NBA ..... doubt it will end up in court ..... enjoy your compensation.

Lillil

Hi. I've read Vauban's guide but, unless I'm mistaken, it does not refer to medical grounds as extraordinary circumstances.

We were booked on TOM1647 which was due to leave Palma at 03:30 but eventually left at 15:15. The reason for the delay was that there was a medical emergency on the outbound flight (TOM1646) and that flight diverted to Gatwick and the crew then exceeded their legally permitted working hours.

We complained via Resolver the day after we got back and finally received a response from Thomson yesterday (just 172 days then) which refuses our claim on the basis of the draft NEB guidelines from April 2013 which refers to medical grounds as an extraordinary circumstance.

There is a point of dispute here, the letter we were issued regarding our delay only made reference to a "medical emergency', the response from Thomson refers to the fact that "a passenger had become unwell and required medical attention" but we were informed verbally both by Thomson representatives at the time of the delay and by the captain of the eventual flight that it was a crew member who had taken ill.

We had in the meantime referred our claim to AESA (the Spanish aviation authority) but have not heard back from them and are unlikely to until March at the earliest.

We are keen to pursue compensation and will put Vauban's guide to full use but I am not sure we have a valid case? Our argument would be that the extraordinary circumstances did not take place on our flight and that Thomson should have been able to utilise its resources to provide a staffed aircraft for our journey.

I have seen on one of the NFNW sites reference to Smith & Collinsion-v-British Airways, Staines County Court (April 2015) relating to a pilot falling ill whilst on stopover in the Bahamas were the judge ruled that "a) flight-crew sickness is inherent to the business of an airline therefore outside the ambit of the Article 5(3) Extraordinary Circumstances Defence and b) furthermore that even if it did fall within the ambit of Extraordinary Circumstances, the Defence could not be allowed to stand because British Airways had not proved that the 'delay could not be avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken'."

Any examples of similar cases, comments and advice would be appreciated.

111KAB

Valid claim IMO - as you say outgoing flight (not yours) and the fact it was diverted to Gatwick important as Thomson crew should be available there.


Note you say 'draft' NEB guidelines. These are a load of rubbish as recently referred to by Judge Mellisa Clarke in the Monarch appeal in Reading Court. Read up about this as you will need to challenge Thomson if they continue their nonsense and nothing better that the case I refer to.


Forget Spanish NEB - they may well side with you but so what? Might help very slightly if matter goes to court but Thomson will just state the AESA reply is not legally binding and they are correct.


The Thomson argument may have carried more weight had the delay been around 3 to 4 hours however 12 hours is ridiculous and more than ample time for them to source a new crew ..... from anywhere in the UK. Thomson wiki indicates Gatwick is their largest UK base > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomson_Airways

sarah.wright48

After approximately 3 years of trying we have finally succeeded in getting flight delay compensation from Thomson for a 7 hour delay from Fueteventura in October 2007! We did end up having the use Bott & Co Solicitors but got there in the end. The steps we tried are: wrote to airline, rejected, then tried again after European Court Directive, rejected, letter to CAA, recommended a letter to the independent consumer guys for airlines, they agreed but we had to write to mainland Spain, they also agreed so another letter to Thomson, no reply or acknowledgement, another letter to Thomson advising if we didn't get a response we would start a small claims action through the courts, still no response. Started small claims court proceedings, Thomson sent a letter saying they would defend the claim, now a bit out of our depth re expert witnesses etc so used Bott & Co who were happy to help us as they agreed we had a claim. Thomson settled without having to go to court (surprise, surprise!), money refunded less Botts 27% within about 8-10 weeks of Botts taking it on for us. Very happy with outcome, another success for the 'little guys'. Learn a lesson Thomson! Thank you Martin Lewis for such a good step by step instructions and the encourgement to never give up. :j:T:money:

Kezza1969

Hi, this is my first post but just had to let you know about my claim with Thomson.


I found out about the compensation available through an email from MSE. My flight was in 2014 so not too long ago. They had to change the aircraft for a technical fault and didn't have the right crew in the Dominican Republic to fly the aircraft home so we stayed an extra night at our own cost as we were not on a package holiday, we'd bought our flights separately. I still had the confirmation email for the flights as proof. I submitted this as an attachment to the template form via resolver on 28 November 2015 using the wording suggested by MSE. Resolver emailed me when escalation was due and it was really easy to do. Just click on the link and they have an email all set up for you to click send on. They tell you when and the email addressee is already on the email.


Then surprise, surprise on 23 January 2016 a cheque for £1691 drops through the letterbox. I couldn't believe it. It was so simple. In fact they can delay all my flights if claiming is this easy. It took nearly 3 months but it just a waiting game.


Thank you MSE - my bank account needed it !!

JPears

Did you get your hotel and food costs refunded too?

zzx

appeared in court on monday with Mr. Nicholas of Easyjet.
Ref: flight cancelled due to knock on effect of bad weather.
Judge found that knock on effect of bad weather was an extraordinary circumstance and defence relied on atricle 15 of preamble:
15)



Extraordinary circumstances should be deemed to exist

where the impact of an air traffic management decision

in relation to a particular aircraft on a particular day

gives rise to a long delay, an overnight delay, or the

cancellation of one or more flights by that aircraft, even

though all reasonable measures had been taken by the

air carrier concerned to avoid the delays or cancellations.



Then came the second test, whether EJ had employed all of its resources short of intolerable sacrifices etc. although the court looked more to reasonableness rather than all resources. EJ had a list of flights delayed that day but n ot the length of delays. a brief recess was granted for Mr. Nicholas to produce the information.
He was unable to do so other than generally across europe. He said that EJ have 75% back up crew and on that day 25% of flights were delayed by more than 3 hours putting crew out of hours.
The court took the view that this left 50% cspacity spare crew.
EJ said yes but not necessarily at Gatwick but had no data.
I suggested they could be bussed or flown in. Mr. Nicholas said the spare crew may not be at locations where EJ have flights coming in to Gatwick. I suggested they could be flown in on other airlines.
Court seemed to agree and judgement was in our favour..

I asked Mr. Nicholas, a charming fellow, why EJ would send a solicitor to court to defend a €250 claim. With travel time this was his whole working day. He said that there is a feeling claimants are relying on EJ not appearing in courts far from Luton and the message is they will appear and defend.

Oh well