Originally Posted by
ZenAutomaton
Well my Airtanker A330 was 3 hrs 5 minutes late on the BHX-TFS yesterday and despite me pre booking a window-aisle pair for the return trip planned on a B763, those seats have been magically changed to separate me and the Mrs to separate rows and seats (A&K) on whatever appears to be taking us back on Friday 20th. Aside from ridiculous check in queues, ridiculous security queues, 3hrs 5 min late arrival with no IFE in my seat, no normal catering on board and waiting for the bus to take us to resort as we were so late, the actual HOLIDAY has been fantastic. Believe you me I'll be talking TUI to the cleaners.
There's bigger things going on in the world than worrying about being a few hours late to your holiday and having no IFE to watch for 4 hours. You may notice that all around the UK and even part of Europe, there's a huge shortage of airport staff affecting many Airlines, Ground Handlers and Airport/security staffing levels. You are not unique, stop being so precious.
TOM7548 BHX-TFS, on the 13th shows an arrival time of 11:00 in TFS, and it landed TFS at 13:55, so less than 3hours late, so no EU261 delay is applicable. You return TOM7549 TFS-BHX on the 20th, is again showing an Air Tanker A330 flight, due to TUI 788 G-TUIH being at LTN on maintenance, so they are currently a B788 down in their fleet, hence the short term lease of the Air Tanker A330
That A330 wouldn't have been cheap to lease, so well done to TUI to keeping your delay minimal. Also as it seems your arrival delay was less than 3 hours, it seems you may only get to give TUI a light dusting rather than "taking them to the cleaners"