In significant part because a public transport operator is expected to produce a TIMETABLE, for all sorts of reasons (like people meeting you at the airport), showing what services they are providing. For goodness sake, Thomson used to manage this on a printed page in their holiday brochures in the 1970s - nowadays it should be a piece of cake to show this electronically.

It's organisations where the operations side has been trumped by the sales people, who think the only reason for the whole website is to sell. It's bad enough when the schedule detail shown is a hack of the booking system, worse when anything not sold is not shown. Sometimes I have to advise people to resort to FlightRadar24 to get their departure and arrival details.

Erm there is a timetable on the website.

Hope the pointless rant made you feel better.

Does anyone know the staus of todays Cancun flight from Manchester, it was showing 1500 departure and I had heard via another route it has been cancelled due to baggage being lost. Pax being put in hotel and try again tomorrow.

Will this have a knock on for tomorrows flight? I ask because we are on it. Looking at tommorows departures there areonly 2 787-9 departures but 3 aircraft.

Thanks in advance

In fairness, the timetable doesn’t appear to show fully booked flights. Unless you have a link to a different one?

Let's see the link then.

TUI arrivals/departures shows TOM192 Estimated Departure 17:00 but FR24 shows it pushing back now

Go to the TUI website, select flights and there is a timetable option. Been there for a long time; use it a lot when we are optioneering where to go.

https://www.tui.co.uk/flight/timetable

https://www.tui.co.uk/flight/arrivals-and-departures

Not that I know of anybody who uses a Timetable to know when to pick somebody up from the airport. The passenger's own booking confirmation, boarding pass or the Arrivals and Departures above would be the most obvious resource, as well as either the departure or arrival airport's website. Much of the schedule information on FR24 is wrong, so that's the last place I'd advise people to look.

Are there a list of TUI flights available that have been cancelled for June?
A friend is on Thursday’s Cancun flight from Manchester (hopefully), but not received any cancellation e mail…so all being well is still going…

Pretty sure I seen earlier that TUI are cancelling 6 flights from MAN per day for the next 6 weeks or so. I dont think a list has been published though.

Manchester
 

According to BBC; TUI will cancel 6 flights a day from Manchester until the end of June.

Terrible news for those holidaymakers. As most are likely to be IT charter passengers that is full holidays ruined; not just flights.

6 x 30 x 189 equates to 34,000 lost holidays using my maths!

6 flights a day sounds like 3 aircraft stood down. There is capacity available from other operators in various countries, but presumably not at a price TUI's board are prepared to pay. Yes, they will lose money. Yes, some ACMI owner will be able to buy their second yacht on the strength of it. But you have sold your product and now have to honour your commitments. All a bit surprising given that even in the IT world a good 10-15% of business typically comes in the last few weeks before departure.

Harry Goodman at Intasun used to do this, wait until others had firmed up contracts and then come in and offer the airlines and hotels less to pick up the remaining capacity. Somehow he always managed to get away with it, the failure of Air Europe was due to other reasons.

Flights cancelled doesn't necessarily mean holidays lost - you're assuming all flights are full and there is no scope to consolidate onto other flights, even if it means changes of day/airports, etc

You’re right; hopefully the view is worse case. Still, looking pretty rough for those customers affected.

Although the cancelled flights and lost holidays get maximum press coverage it should be remembered that industry wide 98.5% of flights are operated without major problems, or so I am led to believe.

That doesn’t seem to be happening at the moment. Police reading statements to passengers at the gate telling them their holidays are cancelled and will be escorted to baggage reclaim. They will be refunded and get a £200 voucher *if* they book another TUI holiday (I imagine many wouldn’t dream of that). Many people need to take annual leave which can’t just be moved at the drop of a hat so will have lost their holiday this year.

And much more likely change of destination. That won't matter to many who don't mind where they go as long is its hot and sunny but will pee off anyone who booked to say Santorini because they wanted to go there. Crete might be a rather poor alternative for them!

The situation this summer is a nightmare, and I would imagine many people will be thinking long and hard about booking a package holiday next summer - even if they aren't already because of they size of their utility and food bills. Summer 2023 may not look too pretty, not just for TUI but for the whole package tour industry, and possibly also for independent travel.

I think that in some regard the government, in essentially giving the (false) message that Covid-19 was over, has lulled holidaymakers and operators into a false sense of security. The UK government isn't the only one of course but it did make one heck of a song and dance about lifting restrictions, and anecdotally I am currently seeing many more people wearing masks once again in shops, suggesting that perhaps they are going out and about while infected, or they are seeing more infections in their own circles of friends and relatives and are once again taking precautions off their own bats. Personally I haven't encountered anyone who is knowingly infected for a few months now.

3 TUI flights cancelled today from MAN so far, anybody know the reason for this? Shortage of aircraft/Crews/Ground handling problems or a combination?

They are cancelling 6 flights a day from MAN until the end of June (hopefully not at the gate).

You’re missing two points though. The first is that the ACMI operators, bar the odd exception (Titan), have been an absolute liability and have caused the majority of the problems from the outset. Even Jet2 aren’t immune to that, with two of their Smartlynx flights from BHX being cancelled yesterday amongst their own delays. A lot (not all) of TUI’s problems have come from trying to fight fires caused by the ACMI’s inability to fulfil their commitments.

The second is that Manchester just can’t cope with the numbers, whether that’s check in, security, airside handling. The place isn’t fit for purpose, so taking three lines of flying out is just designed to thin the numbers a bit, cut the long queues at check in - pictures of which seem to find themselves into the Mail on a daily basis - as well as taking pressure off the crewing and aircraft availability pinch points.

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.

But you can't just do that as a business selling "dream holidays" (their expression - and on the "Dreamliner"), and then get out of it at the last minute with "yeah, well, you'll receive EU261", itself something the industry always seems to begrudge, but god knows what would be done to the clients if it wasn't there. They're not running Soviet-era Aeroflot, you know. 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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Everyone said that during the covid crisis. Doesn't seemed to have affected bookings in the short term at least.

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?

Your correct about Skiathos been an obvious contender. But wouldn't the operator rather keep that going and sub charter off something else such as an easy PMI or TFS or something?

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?

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.

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.

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.....

Ahhh. I did think they might of been planning this. So in effect they are using the spare aircraft in the fleet then.

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.

It has been obvious for a while (since at least January) that travel restrictions would be lifted this summer. It should not have been a surprise to a tour operator that people want to go on holiday for the first time in two years.

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?

Would anybody “in the know” be able to tell me how to find out if the JTR on 7 June TOM 2254 is scheduled to go? 😳😳😳

As mentioned in my previous post, TUI was planning to operate 80 aircraft, of which 78 was needed daily, and as mentioned above leaves a spare 789 & 738.

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
 

If you get cancelled by TUI then Jet2 have a late afternoon direct flight available (same day) £41 at the mo....

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

This discussion must not turn into another Covid thread, however you are 100% wrong in that statement, although a great many people did 'die with covid" rather than from it.

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

You're right. The Industry has for too long relied on workers love of aviation to get away with ever eroding T&Cs, and with the forced break and change over the past two years, many are realising it's just not worth it. Personally, I'm early enough in my career that I was always going to come back, but if I was closer to retirement I may have thought twice about 3am alarms, working evenings and weekends, missing life events, no last minute leave requests, delays, disruption etc etc....

I totally agree that two standby aircraft, one long haul and one short haul, for a fleet of eighty aircraft is ridiculous. Someone needs to be held accountable for that decision. While the cost of additional aircraft and crews needs to be accounted for, the financial decision is made much easier to justify by the cost of goodwill and EU261 payments that would accrue without the standby aircraft.

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!