Delays
 

Absolutely and also worth pointing out although the World Cup hasn't started there are not many spares around - Titan alone at BHX have been busy with one-off charters, two yesterday and a 767 and 757 today so not much capacity spare there.

Good news at BHX, NVZ is fixed and en route on today's flight and yesterday's Heraklion also airborne although nearly 22 hours late.

VEC at Manchester appears to still be tech.

Also not limited to Thomas Cook, TUI down a 737 at EMA and the spare 757 has just left BHX to pick up the schedule.

It seems everyone trying their best, just a run of tech aircraft but great to see MT, TUI and Jet2 have back-ups.

Pete

Thomas Cook cancel Manchester Airport flight to New York

According to the article in the M.E.N. there were 310 passengers for the flight. The VS flight's SDT is 13.50 and it would be surprising if some of the TCX pax couldn't be accommodated on that assuming it was a B747 as planned

Sorry why is Thomas Cook cancelling a flight a news article on the M.E.N. Airlines do this day in day out the world over.

I agree that the cancellation of a single flight does not warrant headline news. Of some concern though is the wider punctuality performance of Thomas Cook's West Coast routes, which seem to be struggling to operate to schedule. Having experienced moderate delays myself in both directions traveling MAN-LAX-MAN last month, and noting regular knock-on and tech delays of 1-2 hours on the SEA/SFO/LAX sectors, it does make me wonder if the programme is too ambitious for the fleet and crews available. It may be the beach holiday DNA showing through, but given that they are in code-share and partnership agreements, with pax connecting on at both ends of these particular routes, that really needs sorting.

I thought Thomas Cook had at least one spare A330 aircraft at Manchester for the summer season? (Reported in Jethros)
Is that no longer the case?

I wonder why this mornings fuerteventura flight is delayed then showing next info 1300

TCX Hi-Fly @ MAN
 

Not a good start for the leased A330 then? Today's Fuerteventura flight is delayed until 16:30 and is now operating on TCX A321 G-TCDV

I take back my comment about Charter Airlines getting you there eventually....

Majority were booked onto this, Also heard rumour the rest were shipped back on various LS flights. Would have though TCX would eat their own hat rather than pay the competition :E

Airlines do cooperate wit in situations like this - they know there will come a time when Jet2 are looking for seats and TCX will help them out

No, no coincidence at all. Thomas Cook have made a monumental mistake getting rid of their line maintenance engineers, and are now seeing the result.

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)

Boston and Seattle not on sale for Thomas Cook for Summer 2019. Can anyone confirm if they are being dropped?

I've been raising that question for a while with no conclusive response. It seems slightly odd that the airport, not just TCX, have been advertising this new route in 2018 in their PR blurb if they knew it was being dropped after only 1 season.

I couldn't find the TCX timetable of long haul routes for 2019 when I checked earlier today but a few weeks ago it was showing 38 weekly departures from MAN in 2019 compared to 44 this summer. If they are cutting back to the US, it would offset some of the 20% increase in capacity from Virgin.

If VS are a single carrier doing BOS, and TCX likewise on SFO (we know VS are dropping SFO), that may not be a bad thing in some ways. However, if SEA is chopped after just 1 season, that is disappointing.

Incidentally, in a presentation I heard a few years ago of unserved routes from MAN at that time, SFO was well ahead of LAX in terms of potential pax for a direct service. Perhaps demand has changed since, but we'll have both TCX and VS flying to LAX in 2019.

TCX are indeed sourcing an A330 to replace the frame going back to Air Tanker. According to Routesonline:

https://www.routesonline.com/news/38...ervice-in-s19/

LAX decreases by 1 a week
SFO change of day of operation
SEA increase to 3 a week

Thomas Cooks Long Haul Flying Future...
 

Does anyone know what Thomas Cooks long haul plans are, with regards to new aircraft?

Just been looking the A330-200's are averaging around 13.4yrs old and the A330-300's are around 18yrs old. When you add into the mix the Condor 767's which are averaging nearly 23yrs old, I guess the airline needs to consider the next move for the long haul fleet in the next 18-24 months and would make sense to probably make one large order for the whole group to secure the best deal, with the first deliveries going to Condor and doing staggered deliveries over maybe a five year period, the current A330-200's will be reaching around 18-20yrs old.
(Source: https://www.planespotters.net/airline/Thomas-Cook-Group)

Another question, can Thomas Cook Airlines maintain long haul flying as a "Scheduled" carrier for the foreseeable future from Manchester, or are they just riding the crest of a wave while there is limited low cost long haul competition from Manchester, at the moment?
I can't imagine they would be in a good place if they tried to compete with Norwegian.

Could this be why there are rumours of Thomas Cook looking for an investor in the airline side of the business, to buy new aircraft?

Largely good news, I think. Slightly surprised at the scale of capacity increase on MCO and CUN. BOS with MT gone but we keep the route courtesy of VS. It's another sign that MT and VS are accepting the size of the market on some of their MAN-USA routes, and instead of a capacity/ price war they are somehow working out who can do which ones the best, and which to leave to the other. VS have increased BOS for next year. Likewise VS have dropped out of SFO and left that to MT, who have stepped down a notch on LAX as VS join them on this arguably stronger route. No suggestion of any collusion here, just good market sense. The shift of operating days by MT also means that we have a flight to LAX on 5 days of the week rather than 2 flights on some days and none on most. This can only be good, leaving both airlines stronger and the routes with some scope to grow. SEA increase in frequency does not surprise me, the transfer volumes connecting on to this service over MAN have been HUGE. Dr. Frasier Crane would say 'I'm listening'.

Excellent summary Roverman.

I'm surprised MAG never used Daphne (Jane Leeves) to promote Manchester in the USA.

The USA would likely have known no different but she was born in Essex and brought up in Sussex so definitely not a UK marketing tool for Manchester !
The Frasier series repeated on TV Channel 4 most mornings is brilliant and a must watch. I'm with you Roverman on "I'm listening"

TC Long Haul from Manchester S19

Cuba - Holguin is dropping to weekly from twice weekly, plus weekly flights to Varadero, Cayo Coco & Cayo Santa Maria
Las Vegas is operating five times a week

Scandinavian arm to take hifly a380

wet lease arrangement so i imagine will stay in hifly colours

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.gmf...9f22930216.jpg

...................

Being used on Copenhagen to Larnaca and back today and from Oslo to Palma de Mallorca and back on 2 August.