Originally Posted by
Wycombe
This is the latest in a run of negative publicity - although any airline's aircraft can run into unexpected CAT of course - for Maleth-Aero.
This flight was one of a series being run by them for P&O Cruises, carrying cruise pax between LGW/MAN and BGI/ANU for the UK winter season, using 2 A332's based temporarily at LGW and MAN.
Most of these flights (utilising usually 5 787's each day over 2-day weekend ship turnarounds) are provided by Tui - but Maleth were brought in quite "late in the day" to provide extra capacity after other airlines (one was Virgin, according to rumour) renaged on a Contract. I re-iterate rumour as there were lots of stories circulating as to how that "late in the day" involvement came about.
I was on one of said cruises returning to the UK on 2nd Dec from BGI, flying Tui, but one of the Maleth flights (BGI-MAN) picked-up an approx 12 hour delay, apparently due to their MAN-based a/c being u/s for the outbound sector and a replacement having to be rushed there from storage in Chateauroux. I would imagine crewing was also an issue.
These flights had already lit up complaints to P&O, due to pax having paid for premium seats in advance, and the Maleth a/c not having them, and also due to a lack of IFE - which the Tui, and other aircraft usually used have, of course.
Rightly or wrongly, this incident will have added to P&O's woes with using this carrier, although as I said, of course, it can happen to any airline.
According to a P&O insider on another forum, neither BA or VS signed any contracts, so no company reneged. However P&O proceeded with their W23/24 Caribbean cruise programme on the assumption that they would get the capacity they required from BA/VS. However, BA/VS felt that their aircraft could be more profitably utilised on scheduled flights, rather than P&O charters.
Fast forward to 2023, and suddenly P&O find they need 1200 l/h seats every weekend for their winter Caribbean season, with no obvious options. The P&O shortlist for potential suppliers must have been extremely short ! Maleth must have been able to drive a pretty hard bargain, knowing that P&O had really no other options.