Thomas Cook Threatened Strike Advice

tasharthur

Hi, I have a holiday booked with Thomas Cook which seems like it may be cancelled due to their threatened strike action over the may bank holiday.


Can I claim back my money now to rebook something with another company?


Its a first family holiday for us and taken us 2 years to save for. The kids are so excited and I don't know what to do!


I wont be able to book another holiday until next year if it is cancelled and they don't repay quick enough because I work term time only so cant get time off, same with kids although it isn't too bad at their school so a few days they can have, but also my partner has booked up his holidays with work already because of their new system and we cant afford to go in the 6 weeks holiday!! Totally gutted

richardw

The strike ballot is 25th May, which date and time is your outbound flight?

tasharthur

its 1st june at 6am - so literally a week after the decision - but with airline strikes it always happens! We avoided the bank holiday Monday because theres usually a strike somewhere on the bank holiday but judging by reports, this could affect the whole half term!

Westin

Nothing will really be known until the results of the strike ballot.

Should strike action be called then I suspect TC will work on contingency plans. I very much doubt holidays will be cancelled.

Flights might be delayed but I also think TC will look at sub chartering aircraft in to operate TCX flights and keep their schedules in place and therefore avoid disruption for passengers. Costly for TC and the union will be aware of that.

leylandsunaddict

tasharthur wrote: »

Hi, I have a holiday booked with Thomas Cook which seems like it may be cancelled due to their threatened strike action over the may bank holiday.


Can I claim back my money now to rebook something with another company?

No. The company you've paid for your holiday TCTO trades separately to the airline. It's got nothing to do with them 'if' cabin crew decide to strike. Apart from that there may not be any strike action. According to TCX they haven't made any changes to the crew breaks, and they're still entitled to what they've had since they were agreed with the union in 2014.

Alan_Bowen

The airline has allegedly been looking at breaking the strike by chartering in aircraft from other airlines and since June bookings are low, this should be perfectly possible. Don't panic, I doubt there will be any strike at all

tasharthur

thanks all, very helpful info - sorry just its a first abroad holiday and its been nothing but a headache as ive already had to change it from Tunisia for obvious reasons!


I'm going to need a holiday to get over this one I think

duchy

tasharthur wrote: »

thanks all, very helpful info - sorry just its a first abroad holiday and its been nothing but a headache as ive already had to change it from Tunisia for obvious reasons!


I'm going to need a holiday to get over this one I think

At this point there really isn't any point in getting stressed -Stressing won't change anything so tell yourself it's a waste of energy to do so/

Best scenario the ballot fails (a very real possibility) or is delayed til after your departure date (another likely possibility if talks reopen) and the strike neve happens or happens after your holiday.

Worst scenario - delays or cancellation.

The time to worry is once you know what is going to happen - worrying before that means with the bet scenario you've worried for nothing -worst scenario you are worrying twice .May as well save the worrying til things are clearer.

If you can take the pragmatic view that what will be will be -the next couple of weeks might be easier to get through. There's a lot that can happen before you need to write off this holiday. Plenty of travel strikes never happen or are so badly supported that there is zero or minimal impact on passengers anyway.

interstellaflyer

richardw wrote: »

The strike ballot is 25th May, which date and time is your outbound flight?

Excuse me if I'm wrong, but I thought that there was by law a cooling off period between any ballot and strike action so it may not be a problem for the op.

leylandsunaddict

interstellaflyer wrote: »

Excuse me if I'm wrong, but I thought that there was by law a cooling off period between any ballot and strike action so it may not be a problem for the op.

There is. It's 7 days.

interstellaflyer

leylandsunaddict wrote: »

There is. It's 7 days.

Which means the strike won't take place over the bank holiday weekend as the earliest they could strike would be Wednesday 1st of June.