Due to go to Manchester/Cancun tomorrow. TOM196
I notice that on Thomsons own flight arrivals website they are anticipating ALREADY more than a four hour delay on this flight.
Doe anyone have any idea what is going wrong?
I cannot spot whatever it is having a huge delay inbound to Manchester.

Curiouser and curiouser...
I now see that Thomson are expecting a delay INBOUND to Manchester from Cancun of TOM123 TODAY of what appears to be nearly 18 hours!! (Despite the fact that TOM122 going out only had a 2 hour delay)
BUT – the Manchester airport website is suggesting that TOM 196 – my flight – is still leaving on time tomorrow morning.
Is there REALLY a delay on TOM196 and if so how much and why?

Hi to all,
Does anybody know why Tom 54 operated by G-PJLO to and from Maldives, Scheduled departure from LGW Sunday 6th January 18:55 seems to be over 24 hours late and not due back until Wednesday.

Reason for asking is that 4 years ago we were on the receiving end of a 24 hour delay due to lack of available aircraft due to technical issues.

Will this be more common whilst awaiting the arrival of the fleets B787's - with their dodgy APU batteries ( alleged) -
or
"D" checks catching up with the fleet.

I see from UKBill that there are issues in Manchester as well??

Regards

Joe

joe3400,

There was a technical problem with the aircraft resulting in delays and knock-on effects. It is nothing to do with maintenance or D checks. Aircraft are complex machines and have problems from time to time.

Darren

ukbill,

There are knock-on delays in the fleet at the moment due to a problem with an aircraft. Your inbound aircraft is normally TOM123. You'll just have to wait and see if operations can do their magic and get things back on track.

Darren

Thanks for the fast response Darren.
I guess I just have to brace myself for the fun of potentially sitting around Manchester Airport for maybe seven hours since they still want folk to arrive 3 hours before the original departure time.

I do think it's a pity that they can send everyone text messages offering silly "win your holiday" gambling games the day before a flight, but are completely incapable of texting folks the latest news regarding flight times. One has to just go to the airport and hope.

ukbill,

The reason you still need to check-in on time is operations could get your sorted sooner, if there is a delay. It's far easier having everyone in one place than have to start making 150 phone calls to get everyone to the airport. Not everyone will have provided mobile phone numbers or email addresses at the time of booking. While it's a nice idea, in practice, it doesn't work. A text or an email isn't really useful when you need to ensure the message has reached the recipient. At least with everyone at the airport, announcements can be made where everyone will (should) get it.

Hopefully, it won't be a problem for you. Have a great holiday

Darren

Thanks Darren as usual

I was trying to dig a bit deeper and did wonder if there was sufficient resilience in the fleet of 767's to compensate for tech issues, and yes, I do realize that keeping an aircraft free to "fill in" as such would not make financial sense.

Regards

Joe

Sadly it looks like the horrible expected delay of TOM196 from Manchester tomorrow is getting worse. Thomson are now forecasting a delay of over five and a half hours.
And the situation regarding the return of TOM123 from Cancun is completely confusing. It now seems to be delayed until the early hours of Thursday morning, so there's no way this can now operate TOM196.
I'm just hoping Thomson flight operations will NOT do what they did to me back in 2011 when they had aircraft breakdowns. Instead of using one of their own nice 767s, they chartered a horrible cramped Thomas Cook 767 (no IFE, no premium, cramped 30in seatpitch, ghastly food) to bring us back from the Dominican Republic.
All the charter companies do seem to be cutting flight times to the bone with very little allowances to cover for breakdowns.

What probably isn't helping is that one of the "British" Thomson 767s appears to be operating out of Oslo!! - G-OOBL

brewerdave / ukbill,

Thomson regularly have aircraft based in Norway during the winter season operating for sister airline Tuifly Nordic, and vice verca during the peak holiday season in the UK (i.e, summer). G-OBYF had an inflight shutdown (engine problem) yesterday with G-OBYD being dispatched to rescue stranded passengers last night to bring them back from Samara, Russia. I'm not sure why G-OOBL is up there, presumably covering for G-OBYF due to range requirements but there are multiple fleet issues at the moment. Once G-OBYD returns from Russia, I assume that'll be utilised to cover the UK issue. Issues are like buses and normally and come in pairs!

Darren

Oh. dear....
TOM196 when are you going to go? Or are you going at all?.
The delay went up to six hours. But now the flight has completely VANISHED from the Thomson flight arrivals webpage!

And now the flight has arrived back on the Thomson webpage.
And they are claiming that it will arrive On-time at 22-45 into Cancun!! - despite the fact that it was supposed to arrive at 14.15 - so it REALLY has a EIGHT AND A HALF hour delay now but they are trying to pretend it hasn't.!!
I also note they don't mention it on their "News" page. They just tell you there about the problem of the huge delay into gatwick of the flight from PUJ.
Personally I think Thomson Flight operations are in a bit of a confused mess today.

ukbill wrote:

Personally I think Thomson Flight operations are in a bit of a confused mess today.

Given the problems they're dealing with at the moment, that doesn't surprise me.

Darren

Old aging fleet ? or just bad luck ? For sure they need to address the problems i think 3 years ago i said drop the dream on liner and get A 330's Qatar Airways don't seem to have many problems with their much younger fleet and they are flying daily as many miles as Thomson.

In my experience, which includes 2 day's at Manchester airport ala Thomson they are really not to good at either having a back up plan or indeed being able to relay information whether at the airport where announcements can be made or at home.

Things like "did you not get the call" to let us know the flight had been delayed some 12 hours earlier and would not be going until another 24 hours? Would I have been standing, like another 200 passengers at the desk if we had.

This was followed up by "go home until tomorrow" This was a flight where people had come from Scotland to get on.

I could go on but you would not believe how poorly Thomson was. Qatar on the other hand are totally different in handling problems.

I really hope you do not have to rely on Thomson "help" at the airport, but maybe I was unlucky, but I doubt it.

2 day's in Manchester airport ....still receiving counselling.

qatarman / Sleeper,

To be fair, they do have new aircraft on order (and have had for some time) so are addressing the age 'problem'. You can't blame Thomson for the dealys by Boeing. You mention an aging fleet, but as you've seen with the current 787's, even new aircraft have their problems proving age has little bearing on reliability. They have technical problems with 2 aircraft and are doing the best they can to cover the situation. It's just bad luck that two aircraft had problems at the same time. These things happen.

Darren

Fully agree with you Darren but its the customers who have saved all year to have a winter holiday that bear the brunt sitting in an airport for hours on end is not what they pay for,i have done it and not been best pleased I agree Thomson are not to blame for Boeing's delay's but that is little comfort to paying passengers.I agree about they cannot have a 767 sitting waiting for this to happen no airline does. Not a good situation all round as i am sure Thomson are not happy either.

qatarman,

I've been on the receiving end of a 2+ day delay as well so I know what it's like from personal experience. But these things happen, there's little you can do. The airline will get things sorted as soon as possible.

Darren