Thomas Cook JFK-MAN cancelled 14th June 2018
Some in TCX will recall that I flew the MYT A330 from its introduction until 2004. We generally did a pretty good job, I think, but occasionally something would go horribly wrong and our passengers were put through the most appalling situations. I vividly remember a full planeload in Barbados, awaiting our much delayed MAN while the flaps were fixed. The cabin temperature was through the roof because the APU was u/s. The unpleasantness was shocking, both in what we were doing to our passengers and what they were saying to us.
On that aircraft there was also an ongoing problem with nosewheel shimmy, always responded to with "Pressures checked, report further". At 90 knots, the shimmy was so serious that I felt we had to stop. If we had, I think we would have genuinely pushed some passengers over the edge and into a breakdown. By 100 knots, the shimmy had somehow eased and off we went to MAN. From home, I called my boss and implored him to stop the aircraft departing for Jamaica without a new pair of nosewheels. He failed - so instead, 12 hours later, they sent some down to Jamaica from Bangor Maine by Learjet after the crew quite rightly refused to take it. Does this sort of thing still go on today, I wonder?
Okay, so on holiday in New York, you can quite imagine how I felt to awaken last Thursday (14th June) to find an email from Thomas Cook saying sorry, flight cancelled, refund on its way, rebook your own way home (call if we might help you with this), goodbye. Or words to that effect. The CAA specifically states that passengers cannot be abandoned abroad, yet there we were. No mention of accommodation or meals or other expenses, nor of refunding the air fare difference, nor of the official EU compensation for lateness caused by last minute cancellation.
New York was full, flights packed and local prices absurdly high. Quite scary. In the event I rapidly cobbled something together that got us same day out of New York and home via Lisbon, arriving at MAN only 7 hours later than originally planned. However, that was the result of some experience, a bit of boldness, a healthy credit card or two and faith that TCX would at some point refund me the $2000 that I had to pay. To many, such a process would be utterly terrifying.
For the rest of the day, the sequence and content of various emails beggars belief. Early on, the 600 euro EU compensation was mentioned together with an online way to claim it, but with no mention of claiming anything else. A bit later, I was told that I had cancelled our booking, not TCX. Around lunchtime, TCX emailed to say that another carrier had not been found and wouldn't be, but confirming a refund - well, I had easily found TAP via Lisbon, why hadn't they? At teatime, climbing into our taxi for JFK, I read that we had been put on a Lufthansa flight to Munich the following day, but with no further details - we would find out about everything else only on check-in 24 hours later. Twice I emailed that we would not need this flight, without acknowledgement.
The icing on the cake: I now receive daily emails asking me how good my flight was!
My reason for writing all this? Quite simply, I am horrified. I sympathise with whichever under-resourced department has to sort out the minutiae of 600+ suddenly cancelled passengers, but there has to be a better way than this. Writing to Customer Services would, I believe, be a complete waste of time. If there is someone out there with direct access to the "top" at TCX, please do send it in their direction. I have a lot of affection for the A330 operation that we started at MYT (or was it still Airtours?) in 2000 and it hurts to see its legacy being mishandled. If I receive a PM, I'll certainly respond and co-operate with any kind of informal query.
Thank you for reading!
Bob
PS Well done Colin Dawson for making it through :-) (see above)
Last edited by Bob_Harris_721; 20th Jun 2018 at 18:35.
Reason: Typos