WATABENCH
There is a big story in today's Bristol Evening Post re the cancelled BY to Larnaca on Sunday evening. The scenario seems to be that the 757 went tech at BRS prior to the flight and no replacement a/c was possible on that evening.
The pax (according to the paper there were 235 of them) were told they would be flown to Cyprus from Gatwick the following day. Some went home and others stayed in a local hotel.
They returned to Lulsgate on the Monday to be told the Gatwick idea had been shelved and they would be bussed to Manchester instead. They were and took off at 1800 hours on Monday - just under 24 hours late.
A Thomson spokesman said the original Gatwick idea had to be aborted because that a/c was needed for the Caribbean.
Needless to say the paper carries lots of personal stories from pax and one can have nothing but sympathy with them. It wasn't their fault the flight had to be cancelled.
Some unanswered question though:
How did the returning pax from LCA get back to BRS?
Why were the pax taken to MAN instead of the replacement a/c being brought to BRS (I assume it was a case of the pilots being out of time if they had to fly to LCA and back with a stop at BRS but this was not apparently explained if it was the reason)?
Why could a company as big as Tui not have found a replacement a/c and crew from somewhere (even from another operator) either that evening or the following morning to operate the flight from BRS? I have used the Thomson/Britannia organisation for as long as I care to remember (over twenty-five years), partly because they are so big that I felt I would not be bu**ered about so much as possibly with smaller outfits. And that has been my experience down the years so this is particularly disappointing. Indeed, back in February my son and his family flew from BRS to Monastir with this company. The Britannia 757 went tech at BRS prior to the flight but Tui had a replacement 757 at BRS within two hours of the scheduled take-off time (from MAN ironically) and they were away less than four hours late on that occasion.