TUI - Horrendous

MarkAlrighty

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for your e.mail of the 07/09/22 regarding my claim for compensation.  The holiday I had booked with yourselves was a joint Birthday and Retirement trip that I had planned for sometime and to say it was an unenjoyable experience was an understatement. At no time in the run up to the holiday was any mention from yourselves of possible delays either from yourself or third party suppliers, so we were therefore looking forward to the holiday of a lifetime.

This started to go wrong on the morning of departure (02/09/22 06.20) when waiting at the boarding gate we were informed after an hours delay of a 60 to 90 minute further delay due to ‘technical reasons’ this was provided by a TUI representative who upon issuing that statement was not seen again all day. Time passed and in the early afternoon the ‘delay’ was re-iterated by tannoy (no representative available), eventually we embarked upon a coach to take us to the aeroplane, after 15 minutes we were told the flight was ‘cancelled’ (no explanation provided). At 1600 we boarded coaches to take all the passengers to the hotel Hilton Metropole Birmingham for an overnight stay and evening meal. We did not obtain any further flight information until 21.40 that evening by e.mail informing ourselves of a flight the following day, a time of 10.40 on the 03/09/22 was given. The following morning we were provided with a cheese sandwich, canned drink and yoghurt for breakfast!.

Upon reaching the boarding gate for the flight we were told of an hours delay (no reason provided), we eventually boarded a ‘wet lease’ plane and crew for the flight to Tenerife. Once in the air we were told there was limited refreshments, effectively a canned drink and half a pack of Pringles for a 4 hour flight!. We eventually reached the Guayarmina Princess Hotel at around 1700 on 03/09/22, a ‘loss’ in total of 29 hours worth of holiday time (counting from 11.00 on day one at Tenerife and arriving at the hotel on day 2).

The return flight also suffered from a one hour delay and a baggage re-claim waiting time at Birmingham airport of 1.5 hours, all in all a very unsatisfactory experience.

For TUI to ‘hide’ behind a ‘regulation’ which cannot be verified by passengers is a very poor response by a company that seemingly treats their passengers with contempt, probably for cash flow purposes. It also seems unlikely that ‘you’ would not be insured for such third party losses!.  If this claim is not given serious consideration I will pass it on to the Litigation services that are freely available on a ‘no win, no fee’ basis.

eskbanker

Did you submit a claim specifically in the context of their legal obligations under the Package Travel Regulations and/or the UK/EC 261/2004 flight ones, or was it a more general 'my holiday was rubbish, I'd like some money back'?

What, if anything, have they accepted?

What have they rejected, and on what grounds?

What does the reference to 'such third party losses' signify?

comeandgo

MarkAlrighty said:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for your e.mail of the 07/09/22 regarding my claim for compensation.  The holiday I had booked with yourselves was a joint Birthday and Retirement trip that I had planned for sometime and to say it was an unenjoyable experience was an understatement. At no time in the run up to the holiday was any mention from yourselves of possible delays either from yourself or third party suppliers, so we were therefore looking forward to the holiday of a lifetime.

This started to go wrong on the morning of departure (02/09/22 06.20) when waiting at the boarding gate we were informed after an hours delay of a 60 to 90 minute further delay due to ‘technical reasons’ this was provided by a TUI representative who upon issuing that statement was not seen again all day. Time passed and in the early afternoon the ‘delay’ was re-iterated by tannoy (no representative available), eventually we embarked upon a coach to take us to the aeroplane, after 15 minutes we were told the flight was ‘cancelled’ (no explanation provided). At 1600 we boarded coaches to take all the passengers to the hotel Hilton Metropole Birmingham for an overnight stay and evening meal. We did not obtain any further flight information until 21.40 that evening by e.mail informing ourselves of a flight the following day, a time of 10.40 on the 03/09/22 was given. The following morning we were provided with a cheese sandwich, canned drink and yoghurt for breakfast!.

Upon reaching the boarding gate for the flight we were told of an hours delay (no reason provided), we eventually boarded a ‘wet lease’ plane and crew for the flight to Tenerife. Once in the air we were told there was limited refreshments, effectively a canned drink and half a pack of Pringles for a 4 hour flight!. We eventually reached the Guayarmina Princess Hotel at around 1700 on 03/09/22, a ‘loss’ in total of 29 hours worth of holiday time (counting from 11.00 on day one at Tenerife and arriving at the hotel on day 2).

The return flight also suffered from a one hour delay and a baggage re-claim waiting time at Birmingham airport of 1.5 hours, all in all a very unsatisfactory experience.

For TUI to ‘hide’ behind a ‘regulation’ which cannot be verified by passengers is a very poor response by a company that seemingly treats their passengers with contempt, probably for cash flow purposes. It also seems unlikely that ‘you’ would not be insured for such third party losses!.  If this claim is not given serious consideration I will pass it on to the Litigation services that are freely available on a ‘no win, no fee’ basis.

Claim for what? You have not noted what it is you are claiming.

MarkAlrighty

Thank you for taking the time to get in touch with us regarding your flight delay claim for flight TOM7548 on 02/09/2022 from BHX to TFS.

I appreciate that delays can impact your enjoyment and comfort whilst travelling with us. I would like to reassure you that while we try our very best to ensure we get you on holiday and home again as close to your original planned times as possible, despite our best efforts, delays can happen on occasion.

European Regulation EC 261/2004 states that we as the Airline may have to pay compensation to you when you experience a long delay of over 3 hours on arrival, but only if the delay wasn’t caused by ‘extraordinary circumstances’. We have investigated your claim for your flight delay of 05 hours and 30 minutes and our delay handling logs show that your flight was delayed due to a lack of fuel available at BHX airport caused by supply chain issues. As you can appreciate this was a situation completely outside of TUI’s control. So as to help both customers and airlines, the European Commission has recently published draft guidelines as to what amounts to extraordinary circumstances. This list was prepared with the assistance of the various national bodies responsible for regulating the aviation industry across Europe. In this draft, the Commission has intimated that the following would be considered extraordinary circumstances: 2. War/Political Instability “Where the supply of aircraft fuel is limited or unavailable without pre-notification.” An operating air carrier shall not be obliged to pay compensation in accordance with Article 7, if it can prove that the delay is caused by extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken. Having investigated into the reasons for the delay to your flight, I can confirm that the circumstances surrounding the delay to your flight are classified as extraordinary circumstances under Regulation 261/2004 of the European Union.

MarkAlrighty

No Fuel for the Aircraft!

eskbanker

It's not clear to me why TUI say "We have investigated your claim for your flight delay of 05 hours and 30 minutes" - surely the first flight was cancelled rather than delayed, and the replacement flight wasn't delayed by that much?

https://www.atlasandboots.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/flight-compensation-extraordinary-circumstances.pdf (can't find the CAA original) does indeed consider limited fuel supply to be extraordinary circumstances but only within the context of war or political instability, and it seems something of a stretch to assert the Ukrainian situation as directly relevant to a localised shortage, if that's what TUI are trying!

Perhaps worth noting that https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/local-news/tui-holidaymaker-suffers-30-hour-25060092 covers someone else's experience on this flight and mentions that

A Birmingham Airport spokesperson said: "In the days preceding and including Friday, September 2, fuel supplies into BHX were momentarily constricted due to technical problems at the local Kingsbury depot.

"We sourced fuel from other depots and gave our airlines advance notice of this supply chain challenge, advising they arrive into BHX with enough fuel for their return trips."

so it ought to be feasible to construct a case that it was false for TUI to claim that the problem "could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken", as required by the regulations, especially if it can be established how much pre-notification TUI had....