TUI airways-2
The majority of customers affected will be able to rebook for the same period, as they’ve been given enough notice. Those cancelled within two weeks will receive EU261 as well. Quite frankly it’s what they should’ve done two weeks ago, rather than let it knock on this badly.
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Sensible move imo. The only surprise to me is they haven't trimmed capacity elsewhere too. Better to cancel with a few weeks notice rather than the trauma of finding out at the airport.
More and more crew will be through training, more aircraft available and hopefully the airports will be better by the time the end of June rolls round.
It's still been incredibly poor planning and prep from tui, but they have also fell victim to the problems out of their control. Maybe it's also time they took a leaf out of their main rivals book and looked at taking more control and responsibility in house regarding ground handling. MAN/BHX/LGW and possibly BRS are big enough bases to warrant it and see the benefits.
More and more crew will be through training, more aircraft available and hopefully the airports will be better by the time the end of June rolls round.
It's still been incredibly poor planning and prep from tui, but they have also fell victim to the problems out of their control. Maybe it's also time they took a leaf out of their main rivals book and looked at taking more control and responsibility in house regarding ground handling. MAN/BHX/LGW and possibly BRS are big enough bases to warrant it and see the benefits.
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Yes, this exactly! Today's Manchester to Skiathos has been cancelled and that's a destination visited mainly by regulars who go year after year (myself included). The Skiathos Facebook groups that I am in have exploded this morning with word of the cancellation, lots of very angry people and I don't blame them. There's not much by way of flights with other carriers either, from Manchester there are Jet2 and the BA Citiflier weekend special.
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Yes, this exactly! Today's Manchester to Skiathos has been cancelled and that's a destination visited mainly by regulars who go year after year (myself included). The Skiathos Facebook groups that I am in have exploded this morning with word of the cancellation, lots of very angry people and I don't blame them. There's not much by way of flights with other carriers either, from Manchester there are Jet2 and the BA Citiflier weekend special.
Unfortunately Skiathos was always going to be an obvious contender as it’s a restricted airport and only a small number of captains are qualified to fly there, which reduces flexibility even more and essentially rules out sub-chartering.
Jet2 have performed even worse over the past 2-3 days, especially out of BHX and MAN, so don’t be under any illusion they’re immune from any of this. And BA at LHR are an example that self handling alone doesn’t always solve your problems.
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Without a doubt TUI are getting a pasting in the media. More so than Jet2 who are now their biggest rival. I'd be interested to see how this has affected booking levels. Surely people are going to think twice before trusting TUI with their package holiday bookings.
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Today's CWL-TFS cancelled while the passengers sat on the tech aircraft for 3 hours. Texts came through before staff knew. Cancelling and not overnighting just shows there's no slack to deal with things. TUIs operation is a complete mess at the moment.
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Agree though on the jet2 point. They are having to some extent the same issues but a better approach to customer service keeps them out of the media and moaning on here I guess.
Over the weekend they cancelled around 2-3% of flights. A lot less than some other airlines but seems to garner a lot more interest on here?
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It might not seem it on a Skiathos Facebook group, but people like that are generally in the minority. Most will care more about the hotel than which island they go to.
Unfortunately Skiathos was always going to be an obvious contender as it’s a restricted airport and only a small number of captains are qualified to fly there, which reduces flexibility even more and essentially rules out sub-chartering.
Jet2 have performed even worse over the past 2-3 days, especially out of BHX and MAN, so don’t be under any illusion they’re immune from any of this. And BA at LHR are an example that self handling alone doesn’t always solve your problems.
Unfortunately Skiathos was always going to be an obvious contender as it’s a restricted airport and only a small number of captains are qualified to fly there, which reduces flexibility even more and essentially rules out sub-chartering.
Jet2 have performed even worse over the past 2-3 days, especially out of BHX and MAN, so don’t be under any illusion they’re immune from any of this. And BA at LHR are an example that self handling alone doesn’t always solve your problems.
Re: Jet2, whilst the MAN/BHX problems have been bad last few days, I'm yet to see them cancel a flight. They seem to have a lot more flexibility when something does fall over to rescue flights without then carrying delays on and into the programme for days if not weeks on end.
I'm not a TUI basher at all, I want them to succeed and grow. But I think they need a strong change in operational outlook. A fleet order is needed and a different operational outlook also needed. I'm not suggesting they follow Jet2's path and have standby's upon standbys which sometimes it feels like they do have, but at least have 1 in the north and 1 in the south to cover the operational requirement. Heck didn't easyJet begin looking if not confirm they were due to do that for S20. Have not a standby but operational spare aircraft to put flights onto/set something up to position/recuse flights if it was to fall over?
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The plan was to have spare aircraft in the fleet. 1 x 789 and 1 x 738 if memory serves. However a number of circumstances have conspired against this. Late deliveries of aircraft being the primary one. 3rd party providers falling over. A/c damaged by ground equipment and of course a shortage of crews.
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The government should be firmly blamed for the lack of help regarding the aviation sector/airlines over the course of 2 years. Constantly ignoring them and then Shapps having his 3 coloured traffic light system which turned into 108338 colours and making it up on the spot as he went along. With a lack of support, a lack of vision from this government to re-open travel, consistent chopping and changing of rules and entry requirements of not only our country but others, the stupidity of having to test to depart and arrive back into the uk as only far back as February, you name it, it hampered the airlines and airports recruitment drive. The idiots in government, after getting bored of playing around with aviation/wrecking peoples lives/playing and having fun with wrecking peoples holidays, that we could all go on holiday, aviation industry to return back to 2019 levels. Oh and Priti Patel launched some new rules regarding obtaining airside passes.
If only the industry had been campaigning for help, assistance and for the government to work with them, not against them, maybe some of this could have been avoided.
And now we've got Rishi saying he'll help us, the industry. The Arsonist turned fire fighter .... no thanks Rishi. Your narcissistic self entitled hands have done more than enough damage.....
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The plan was to have spare aircraft in the fleet. 1 x 789 and 1 x 738 if memory serves. However a number of circumstances have conspired against this. Late deliveries of aircraft being the primary one. 3rd party providers falling over. A/c damaged by ground equipment and of course a shortage of crews.
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Yes, the two spare aircraft are currently in KBFI and Victorville, significantly delayed by Boeing.
As for Skiathos, the problem is the inflexibility. If the airline only has, say, 10 JSI trained captains then there is absolutely no scope for them to be moved onto other duties that would jeopardise the JSI. And when they do go sick/fatigued/out of hours, there’s only a small pool of people able to cover, so there’s a high probability it would end up being delayed anyway. And I know the obvious answer is to train more people for Skiathos, but there is absolutely no spare capacity in anybody’s training program for that after the Covid shutdown.
Agree with everything you say about the government though. They’ve proven how quickly they’re willing to turn the aviation industry off, who in their right mind would take a low paid job loading bags or sitting in a windowless room for 12 hours frisking people and asking passenger after passenger if they’ve taken their liquids out of their bags, when they can get a far more secure job at Amazon (or sit on the dole). Plenty of cabin crew have left the industry for more secure roles at estate agents etc, and replacing all of these people requires vetting by, who else, a government agency.
As for Skiathos, the problem is the inflexibility. If the airline only has, say, 10 JSI trained captains then there is absolutely no scope for them to be moved onto other duties that would jeopardise the JSI. And when they do go sick/fatigued/out of hours, there’s only a small pool of people able to cover, so there’s a high probability it would end up being delayed anyway. And I know the obvious answer is to train more people for Skiathos, but there is absolutely no spare capacity in anybody’s training program for that after the Covid shutdown.
Agree with everything you say about the government though. They’ve proven how quickly they’re willing to turn the aviation industry off, who in their right mind would take a low paid job loading bags or sitting in a windowless room for 12 hours frisking people and asking passenger after passenger if they’ve taken their liquids out of their bags, when they can get a far more secure job at Amazon (or sit on the dole). Plenty of cabin crew have left the industry for more secure roles at estate agents etc, and replacing all of these people requires vetting by, who else, a government agency.
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It's wholly up to the carrier to have ALL the resources in place to honour their commitments - something the CAA used to patrol rigorously (I can remember someone having to end up subchartering in a 737 to cover a half-full- F50).
At what point can a case be made that TUI (and many other travel operators) were selling tickets that they had no realistic hope of being able to deliver?
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The plan was to have spare aircraft in the fleet. 1 x 789 and 1 x 738 if memory serves. However a number of circumstances have conspired against this. Late deliveries of aircraft being the primary one. 3rd party providers falling over. A/c damaged by ground equipment and of course a shortage of crews.
However 788 G-TUIF has been out of service for almost 2 weeks, 738 G-TAWP is still at St Athan, not entered service, & The Max G-TUMP is due to be delivered on the 11th June, so that's 3 aircraft short.
738 G-TAWO has been out of service since Thursday, issue in Dubrovnik, and has only just been flown to Prestwick, possibly for work on it?
add the fact that the planned A321 from Smartlynx due to be based at Manchester, looks like its not going to happen, so is currently replaced by an A320 at present, so it means the current planned fleet is at present down 4 aircraft, hence the need to lease in other aircraft, ie Air Tanker, Privilege Style, Neos etc. & therefore no spare aircraft capacity.
Hopefully come July all these aircraft will be back in service, and maybe the new dreamliner G-TUIP maybe delivered, if Boeing gets the clearance to start delivering them again!
Dare I say that 2 spare aircraft for a fleet of 80 was never going to be enough? I’d argue, especially in the summer season you need 1 spare for every 20. Especially at the levels of utilisation needed in the high season.
JTR Santorini
Easy Jet has one the day before, and on the day after, both early morning -
and on Weds night Aegean fly MAN to ATH at 0035 with good connections to JTR and also to Paros by 0905 that morning - It is a night flight, but the ATH airport is fully open for a coffee/breakfast. Your bags will be checked through.
If you go to Paros you will easily get a Blue Star ferry over to Santorini that morning.
Skyscanner will be your flights friend. Obs TUI will cancel your holiday hotel but frankly just call the hotel direct to try and get your room back and just pay them direct.
Best of luck.
if you need Greek ferries then Openseas.gr are a great tool
EDIT -
07 JUNE MAN-JTR-MAN with TUI is NOT now showing up on their Flight Timetable, but that may not actually mean its canned -
TUI have very cheap one way flights to JTR on 4 7 and 9 June from BHX BRS and EMA
Last edited by rog747; 1st Jun 2022 at 08:17.
No false message covid is over. It is over. it is only flu - if people want to live like it's the most dangerous virus in the world I say to them, carry on. But please don't force me to live like that for a flu like disease. Before you come at me - most people that died with covid had some under lying health condition.
However I don't believe you understood entirely what I meant to convey from my posting; probably I didn't make it clear. The point is that government gave a very clear message that Covid-19 had finished, whereas the truth was and remains that with cases around 1 in 60 of the population it is still in wide circulation even today. On the ground the true situation is that businesses, for the most part didn't and still don't want infected people, especially those who are "customer facing" at work while infected so put in fairly strong internal rules about staying at home. The public's expectations, because of the way the government "ended the bad dream" were way beyond what the travel industry could deliver, and the travel industry, keen to recoup losses from the last two years merrily took bookings on the basis that, despite their policies on employee health regarding Covid, they'd be able to deal with a boom in travel.
Thus a perfect storm has been created
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Agree with everything you say about the government though. They’ve proven how quickly they’re willing to turn the aviation industry off, who in their right mind would take a low paid job loading bags or sitting in a windowless room for 12 hours frisking people and asking passenger after passenger if they’ve taken their liquids out of their bags, when they can get a far more secure job at Amazon (or sit on the dole). Plenty of cabin crew have left the industry for more secure roles at estate agents etc, and replacing all of these people requires vetting by, who else, a government agency.
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I also totally agree with comments about the Government’s culpability in all this. It was not just furlough payments that the industry needed help on. It needed more help to recapitalise given the stream of money that floods out of the door in respect of leasing payments and other costs without revenues flooding the other way during a period most aircraft were not flying. Similarly for airports, although their situation was more to do with interest payments on the debt in their businesses. The Government did not get it at the time, and still clearly does not. If I were Grant Shapps, I would roll my neck back in on this. It is not all the airports and airlines and their agents fault. We are here because the Government never really engaged with the industry and worked in partnership to see it through to better times. It appeared a very confrontational relationship, which left me wondering whether it was being driven from an environmental perspective rather than what was best for UK plc in these difficult times. I suspect one or two people might have been burnishing their environmental credentials if it ever got to a Cabinet discussion about the matter, but who knows.
We are where we are. The industry is always great at working in a crisis. This one needs to be sorted as quickly as possible, as there are already a lot of people out there who are saying, “you know what, I can’t be bothered with going abroad this year”. You would be surprised how many are saying this but that is what I am hearing a lot in my job, it is not a small number and every time it comes up in the papers or on TV more form the same view. Winning them back next year, and others who have had a bad experience this year, may not be easy and the work has to start now by getting this turned round and sharpish.
Finally, this Government is loving the opportunity to keep other news off the front page so, perhaps, no surprise Shapps has been particularly vocal in recent days. I trust voters will not forget when the next time comes to vote for our elected representatives. We need decent, honourable politicians who put the needs of the country, and not themselves, first. At present, Ministers want to cling on in their comparatively well paid positions as, without Boris, where would they be?
Rant over!
