violet123 wrote:

Hi Dazbo,
Wonder if you can help me out?
I booked a package holiday for April 2011 with Thomas Cook flying on 15th April from east Midland for 2 weeks and the brochures have only been out 4 weeks for winter 2010/2011. I looked yesterday and it now says on line that there are not enough seats on plane, when I do a search for my date!! (I like to check the price after I book) I went on flythomascook site and the date panel only goes up to March 2011 so cannot check that way either!! Any ideas?? or info
Thanks!

Hi
May sound weird, but sometimes not ALL the seats are for Thomas Cook customers. Saga for example may have pre bought 20% of the aircraft to sell on, as could Cosmos etc. These are therefore their seats to sell, if they don't, they risk going empty.

So in some instances, Thoma sCook potential customers are allocated 60% of the plane for example.

this would explain the above.

I flew with Thomas cook airlines for the first and last time in November. I was charged for excess baggage. They weighed my handbag too. I have travelled with BA,Air France,Klm, and Swissair, and noone has ever asked to weigh my handbag. In the end, I threw some stuff away ie kettle, iron and books, but was still charged. The check in assistant was very rude, and refused to give me her name. I was one of the first to check in.

souad,

Can I ask what your luggage allowance was and what it actually weighed? You'll find all airlines are now clamping down on excess baggage and will charge when you exceed your limits. This includes hand luggage in many cases. It's not just Thomas Cook.

Darren

souad wrote:

I flew with Thomas cook airlines for the first and last time in November. I was charged for excess baggage. They weighed my handbag too. I have travelled with BA,Air France,Klm, and Swissair, and noone has ever asked to weigh my handbag. In the end, I threw some stuff away ie kettle, iron and books, but was still charged. The check in assistant was very rude, and refused to give me her name. I was one of the first to check in.

I presume and hope the iron/kettle/books were not in your handbag?!!!!!!!!!!! NO wonder it was weighed.

As for being first to check in, this does not mean you can get away without paying excess baggage! Everyone is treated the same, everyone has a luggage allowance, so stick to it and you don't get charged.

Note all other airlines you mention are all National carriers, scheduled airlines, who offer larger luggage allowances, but you pay the premium to fly with them.

MikeBravo wrote:

Note all other airlines you mention are all National carriers, scheduled airlines, who offer larger luggage allowances, but you pay the premium to fly with them

And who also charge for excess baggage if you exceed your luggage limits by too much!

Darren

Hi all. My first post

Can I just say how good this website is.

We are flying on 13.02.2010 on a charter flight from Gatwick to Montego Bay at 9.45 - Thomas Cook Airlines Flight 49. Please could you tell me which aircraft we will be flying on?

Also, would you be able to tell me when the February Inflight Mag might be available for viewing online?

Many thanks

Betty

bettycoop,

Welcome onboard
Your flights, LGW-MBJ-LGW (TCX049K/L) are operated by an Airbus A330-200. You'll find further aircraft information on our What Aircraft? guide (see below). If you want to check for any potential delays, the aircraft operates TCX035K/L (LGW-Barbados-Bridgetown-LGW) prior to your flight departing LGW the day before you travel. The magazine should be available either the last week of January or first week of February.

Darren

Darren,

I paid for 20kg with TC. I was 3kg overweight.

Mike, the kettle, iron and books were not in my handbag. I worked for a scheduled airline as ground crew, and we always let passengers get away with up to 5kg, sometimes more. It depended on the flight. You certainly had a better chance of getting away with excess if you checked in early.

I have travelled with BA as I mentioned before, and have been overweight by 3 to 10kgs , per trip and in twenty years have never been charged As for weighing my hand bag TC was a first.

It was an experience. Paying 30 pounds for 3kgs, when I could have travelled with BA to Tunisia, and paid 30 pounds for an extra bag. It is outrageous.

Hi Darren

Thank you so much for all the helpful information. I have made a note of the details and will check for any delays.

Many thanks again

Betty

Hi, I'm flying on Thomas Cook airlines flight TCX461K from Manchester to Rhodes on Wednesday 18th August 2010, could anyone tell me what type of aircraft I'm likely to fly on? Additionally, will it be the same type of aircraft on the return leg on the 25th of August? Many thanks :-)

souad

I flew Thomas Cook from Lanzarote last year. They weighed all hand luggage and were extremely strict on checked weight. We were dead on 40 kgs and both the check in agent and the TC agent passed comment. There was quite a few people who ended up paying excess baggage charges.

souad wrote:

I paid for 20kg with TC. I was 3kg overweight.

That's why you were charged for excess baggage. There's no leeway with charter airlines these days. I know it's frustrating, but to be fare to Thomas Cook, you were in excess of your allocated allowance. For every 1kg of extra weight, extra fuel needs to the loaded on to the aircraft and burnt. If every passenger had a few extra kg's, it means using a lot more fuel and someone needs to pay for it. There's quite markup on the excess charges, but they're there to persuad passengers not to pack too much. You'll find schedule airlines are cracking down on excess baggage too, just not to the same degree. If you think £10 per kg is expensive, some airlines charge up to £35 per kg.

Darren

mr93,

Welcome onboard
MAN-RHO-MAN (TCX461K/L) are operated by an Airbus A321-200 usually. It's a little early to be 100% sure so you might want to double check closer to the time. You'll find further aircraft informaton on our What Aircraft? guide (see below). If you're on the 'L' flight, it's the same type on the inbound flight as the outbound.

Darren

Darren,

Which airline charges £35 per kg?

I think BA have a good deal where they will charge you about £32 for an additional suitcase, not per kg! If you rock up at the airport and have more than your allowance ie 23kg, but less than 32kg, they will only charge you £30.

http://www.britishairways.com/travel/bagunacc/public/en_gb

A man who was going home to his family was charged £120!

I have learned my lesson, will not risk travelling with TC again. I will stick to BA. In fact their flights work out much cheaper to Tunisia, for me. More leg room, less hassle.

souad wrote:

Which airline charges £35 per kg?

Emirates and others.

Many airlines (scheduled) will charge you around the £30-35 mark for an extra bag. But it doesn't get away from charges for excess if any bag is over your limit. Excess charges are often far higher than pre-purchasing extra allowance. It's the same with Thomas Cook.

souad wrote:

I have learned my lesson, will not risk travelling with TC again

Why not 'risk' travelling with TCX again? If you didn't have the 3kg excess baggage, you wouldn't have been charged. You can pre-book an extra 5kg of luggage if you think you'll need it. Many now travel with a set of luggage scales in order to weigh their suitase / hand luggage before travel in order to aviod any problems. We've all been getting away with a few extra kg's for years, but since about 2005, airlines have been clamping down. As MikeBravo mentioned above, the main scheduled airlines are a little more lenient than the charters and low costs airlines, but then the fares are generally hgher to compensate. It's coming though!

Darren

souad wrote:

Darren,

I paid for 20kg with TC. I was 3kg overweight.

I worked for a scheduled airline as ground crew, and we always let passengers get away with up to 5kg, sometimes more. It depended on the flight. You certainly had a better chance of getting away with excess if you checked in early.

I.

I am amazed you claim to have worked on the ground and have not come across excess luggage before and you saying you have a better chance of gettting away with it if you come early....bizarre!!!!!

TCX provide the option to add 5kgs to your luggage at point of booking, not doing this keeps the cost down, a lot of passengers can keep to the 15kgs and do, keeping the cost of their hols down too. If they were to let you or anyone off with 5kgs ( as you suggest)it penalises the honest ones who have prepaid for an extra 5 kgs and makes it a pointless exercise to do so!

Pretty standard for charter airlines now

Darren,

I worked for Air France pre 2005. I guess those were the good old days. However, the last time I travelled with BA was 2006, I was overweight by more than 3kgs, and was not charged. My point is that I have got away with it, and some check in staff are cool. I am aware that charges have to be imposed at some point. What I was saying is that in over twenty years of travelling with scheduled airlines, I have never been charged excess for a few kgs. I had never travelled with a chartered airline before, or done a package holiday.

Mike,

I worked for Air France for a number of years. I can only talk about my experience there, and how myself and my colleagues treated passengers.We were sympathetic, and I accept that a line has to be drawn somewhere, but passengers who checked in early, did have a better chance, some of the time.

Of course I have come across excess luggage.

I did pay for an extra 5kgs with TC my allowance was 20kg rather than 15kgs.

What completely threw me, was the weighing of my handbag. In over twenty years, noone has even bothered with my handbag.

souad,

It was the same situation with charter airlines up to about 2006, until the cost of fuel started to increase. If you've not travelled in a while, I can see it may come as a shock. It's just the way of the world these days with increased costs / overheads for airlines and passenger demands for lower seat costs. If they can charge extra for anything, they will. Check-in staff are only enforcing airline policy. Baggage allowance these days is measured as a total of hold / hand luggage, the main scheduled airlines operating a different way. If you'd have had say 2kg of hand luggage, you would have been permitted to remove 3kg from your hold luggage and place it in hand luggage so you would haven't been over your limits. Because some passengers are travelling flight only and have a limit on hand luggage, hand luggage is checked to ensure it's complient. There's only so much room in the aircraft cabin for strorage. It's more of an issue with the low costs airlines, but passengers were checking-in with well in excess of their allocated hand luggage limit to try and get away with not paying for hold luggage. That's why hand luggage is routinely checked these days. Because scheduled airlines operate under a different business model, it's not so much of a common thing with them. I travelled with AF in 2007 and they were pretty strict on imposing weight restrictions. You'd get away with about 10%, but excess charges were payable beyond that. We're getting a little off topic now, but Thomas Cook are no different than the other charter airlines when it comes to luggage allowances and excess charges if you exceed them. As long as you stay within the airline limits, you'll have no problems.

Darren

Can any oneadvise of what type of aircraft tcx use on flight tcx530L and 530K from BHX/ACE in sept 2010