Try contacting Simpson Millar for some free advice (details here:- http://www.holidaytruths.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=147960) mention you are from holidaytruths.

I agree with Glynis you are arguing the semantics on this and it is a case for someone legally qualified to answer. Your insurers have agreed to reimburse you. Any money you recover from the TO over and above the cost nof the holiday must be paid to them. Legally you cannot financially benefit from an insurance settlement. If you are seeking damages then that is a seperate issue. As far as crew hours are concerned then once their hours are up they are not allowed to work. TOs do noy have spare crews hung up behind the door just in case.

fwh

My guess is that by the fog cleared it would have been too late for the flight to connect with the boat. Not sure where the cruise was departing from but it must have been an extended delay for the crew to run out of hours. A standby crew is usually available unless it was a particularly bad day. More than likely the connection with the cruise was lost due to the weather (fog) and the company took the next best option. I doubt this would count as a significant change as there was an aircraft and crew available to operate the original schedule. It was just a weather related delay.

I think you may have started off on the wrong foot and may be in a stronger position than anyone thought.

Let's go back to the start before it went foggy, if you go to a solicitor you'll need to have these answers ready anyway.

Was the package put together by the cruise operator or did a tour company just buy some space on the cruise?

Was the flight a special charter to get 150ish people to the ship or were there just a handful of you for the cruise and everyone else doing something different? Doesn't make a huge difference to the next bit but handy to have the exact details .

Now the interesting bit (well it is for me!). Look at the itinery provided by the tour operator which you left home with that morning.

What time was the flight supposed to land at the other end?

How long is the transfer? If not given let us know the airport and harbour and we'll work it out.

What time was the ship scheduled to leave at?

And now the big question, if you add the reasonable transfer time to the flight's scheduled arrival does the arrival time at the harbour leave much spare time before the ship departed? Basically, did the tour operator's planning leave a reasonable allowance for ANYTHING going wrong in your journey to the ship? If the answer is no then the weather isn't the main reason you missed the ship - you'd have missed it if there had been something wrong with the plane, or the pilot had been taken ill. And if the transfer was just for a small number and you'd got stuck in trafic behind a pile up on a motorway the ship would probably have gone without you. If there wasn't a reasonable allowance for a delay in the journey to the ship then the reason you missed it is basically down to bad planning by the tour operator - and bad planning can't be classed as exceptional circumstances (par for the course in many companies!).

The bad news is that even if you could prove bad planning you'd probably have to start court proceedings, if you wrote to them standard tour operator practise would be to ignore the words in your case and try to change the subject back to the weather.

I think to prove bad planning you would have to show that the flight failing to connect with the ship was a regular occurrence. In my experience flights that have to connect with a cruise ship are given priority by the tour operator simply because of the logistics involved if the connection is not made.

which is why I asked whether this was a special charter - if it's just a handful of people on an ordinary scheduled flight or a charter mainly for people in hotels it isn't going to get priority. Cruises don't tend to run frequently enough at the same times (demand and tides would rule that out) to prove a pattern but if the itinery only allowed say one hour for all the things that might go wrong in the journey you could claim it was a disaster waiting to happen, if it allowed say 6 hours they could claim they'd thought of reasonably expected delays. And if it's a number inbetween you'd let a court decide based on how far and complicated the journey to the ship was.

The company offered hotel and transfers to a different airport the next day for a 16.00 flight to the second port of call - returning to original airport on original flight. As we viewed this as a significant change ( different day, time, airport, destination, 1 day less cruise) and refused to go....

Interesting to know why you took this decision as it looks like the TO did everything they could with accomodation, transfers and getting you to your cruise ship on day 2? Why did you not take this option, at least you would have had a holiday albeit one day short, and then argue about the lost day on your return? Seems like you have lost a holiday and some of the cost when it could have been avoided.

I think that is probably the case , as the TO offered a alternative to the best of its capabilities (as weather is exempt I believe as being classed as a major change) and as you refused that that why you were not offered a full refund .

as the OP has not been back since asking the question I think further speculation about what happened and why is getting pointless.

as the OP has not been back since asking the question I think further speculation about what happened and why is getting pointless.

The OP originally posted the question at 6.30pm on 10th April. Revisited the site at 6.59pm and has not been back since. Did they expect an instant reply? No idea but I agree with Steve. They have not been back so we are wasting our time speculating.

fwh

Sorry folks - i work away quite a bit and was doing so last week.

Many thanks for the questions and speculations.

The flight was a 10.00 to Tenerife due to land at 14.35 local and the ship was due to depart at midnight. This i think is reasonable time for transfer - it takes around 1 hour. I also think that this gives reasonable time to recover from delays - the snow came at 10.00 a.m and it was expected by all the weather forecasts (if the flight had loaded and took off on time it would have missed the snow but was 15 mins delayed boarding for no apparent reason and it snowed for those 15 mins enough to start the chain of events). So it snowed from 10.00 a.m. until around 12.00 a.m. - our aircraft was heavy given that it was going fairly long distance and despite the fact that other aircraft were landing and taking off after around 13.00 they told us the runway was not clear for an aircraft of our size (not sure this was in fact true since a cleared runway is a cleared runway and why would you only clear half). Had we taken off anytime up to 16.00 pm i think we could have made the ship. Their were 180 on the plane of which 32 were going on the cruise.

Why did we decline - it was a 7 day holiday - day 1 spent in the airport , prospect of day 2 spent in a coach and another airport, we would have missed 2 ports of call as the original time would have had us on board in time to do something in Tenerife and we would have arrived at the second port of call just beofre departure. When you only have a week and you spend 2 days travelling it does not set you up for the next 5 does it? Anyway that was our call and we made the decision - i had checked that our insurance would cover us and the pursuit of Thomson is based on my belief that they are responsible and morally should pay.

I forgot to mention it was booked online as a package through/by Thomson from their site. The band of snow was predicted the previous day to move up the country getting to Yorkshire around mid morning and to last for 2 hours or so which is exactly what happened. An easyjet flight to Tenerife took off 10 mins before we boarded on a perfect runway - by the time we actually boarded and pushed back it was around 10.20 and the snow had been falling - the pilot taxied to the end of the runway, took a look and decided to return to gate. 5 minutes later another easyjet flight pushed back and took off - hence the story about how our flight was too heavy to chance it and we had to wait until the runway was clear. I fully support the pilots decision and have no problem with professionals making judgements/safety etc - in fact i am delighted they are thinking about those things and not pressured by the commercial consequencies. I just think they should have been able to go early afternoon.

Eventually they have given us the flight portion back but not the whole holiday cost.

When you only have a week and you spend 2 days travelling it does not set you up for the next 5 does it? Anyway that was our call and we made the decision - i had checked that our insurance would cover us and the pursuit of Thomson is based on my belief that they are responsible and morally should pay.

I'm assuming from this that Thomson have refunded you 40% of the total cost (the usual formula for flight refunds within a package) and that you've had a full payout from your insurance company for the rest of your loss? If that is the case then you have no claim against Thomson. Your insurance company might have but it is up to them to decide whether to pursue them for their loss - ie what they paid you - and not yours because you have suffered no loss. If there was an excess involved then you might be able to claim this from Thomson but they might argue that that is covered by what they've already paid you. For any further refund you are going to have to prove that you are still out of pocket over and above what you've recieved from your insurers and Thomson.

In some ways, this is comparable to the situation that I found myself in when the new neighbours' cat got locked in my house for 2 days while I was away with inevitable consequences. They were so new I didn't know whose cat it was or that a new one had even moved into the neighbourhood. I could have blamed them for not keeping it indoors, or the gardening friend who when he came to water my containers, inadvertently left the back door open long enough for the cat to slip in without him noticing. I claimed against my house insurance and as soon as it became clear who's cat had done the literally dirty deed on my bed, said new neighbours immediately came round with their cheque book and offered to pay for all the damage but by then my insurance company had paid out in full for a new bed and bedding etc minus the excess. As far as I was concerned, it wouldn't have been appropriate to make a profit from the incident. I wouldn't have felt comfortable accepting from the neighbours the full cost of the damage caused knowing that I'd already received a substantial amount from the insurance company. I suppose that I could have taken the money from the neighbours and repaid the insurance company or shopped them to the insurers and leave them to chase them up to try and reclaim what they'd paid me from them but the compromise of them giving me enough to cover the excess on my policy seemed the easiest option whilst not troubling my conscience. It also kept me on good terms with the new neighbours!

However, if you are looking for compensation in addition to covering your losses, then you would be best advised to seek and take professional advice as Glynis suggested in response to your initial post.

SM

Teeonethousand wrote:

An easyjet flight to Tenerife took off 10 mins before we boarded on a perfect runway - by the time we actually boarded and pushed back it was around 10.20 and the snow had been falling - the pilot taxied to the end of the runway, took a look and decided to return to gate. 5 minutes later another easyjet flight pushed back and took off - hence the story about how our flight was too heavy to chance it and we had to wait until the runway was clear. I fully support the pilots decision and have no problem with professionals making judgements/safety etc - in fact i am delighted they are thinking about those things and not pressured by the commercial consequencies. I just think they should have been able to go early afternoon.

Aircraft performance is a very complex subject. Performance not only varies with aircraft type but also within type. From my own experience, if the runway state was suitable for take off then the flight would have departed. As it was conditions precluded departure and that is the end of story. There is no question of the pilot deciding not to chance it.

We had not clained from our insurance - i lodged the matter with the insurance company but agreed that i would try to get a refund from the TO first and would come back to them when i had either succeeded, failed or decided to give up so no benefitting/double dealing etc in play.

The pilot borded the flight, did the pre-checks etc, pushed back, taxied to the end of the runway, stopped and then taxied back announcing over the speaker that he had decided it was not safe. From that i deduce the pilot has some choice and, as i said before, i am glad they made their judgement and have no problem with that.

Had they had a crew they could have left 3 or 4 hours late and all would have been well.

So my situation is still - do i take it to court or do i claim from insurance and forget it.

Such eventualities are what you take insurance out for. Yes you might succeed but if so all you are doing is saving the insurer, who have taken your money, from having to pay out. If you fail are the insurers then going to pay your costs? And they could be substantial. Airlines do not have spare crews lined up just in case. The pilot took a decision, with which you do not disagree. Save yourself a lot of pain and just take the money.

fwh

The issue of taking off in snow reminds me of what happened to some people I knew a few years ago. They were waiting to board an evening Swissair flight at Zurich to fly to Manchester. At the next gate there was the queue for a BA flight to Heathrow. And it was snowing really hard. The BA pilot made a professional judgement that it was safe to take off and went. The Swiss pilot made his professional judgement that it wasn't safe and cancelled the flight. Everyone familiar with the schedules could see what was going on. The BA pilot was on his way home and if he cancelled he might not get away for 24 hours. The Swiss pilot was booked to overnight in Manchester and come home next morning, if Zurich was open - if not he might be away 24 hours. But no-one would ever be able to prove either side of the events.

In your case I don't doubt that the EZ plane taking off and yours not is a bit suspicious but you'll never get anywhere in court without statements from both pilots and you aren't going to get them. Assuming that your insurance does allow cancellation after a signficant delay in departure from UK airport (that's a fairly common clause) and you took their advice at the time you should make the claim.

As for them having spare crews, the railways do it so I don't see why airlines shouldn't. But sometimes the railways still run out when too many things go wrong. The spare pilots may have already been used.

Hello and again many thanks for the replies - what a brilliant site.

I have made the insurance claim - i called them last week and they just said 'thats what we are here for' so i went ahead

However - i still think that the TO is morally resposible and their behaviour has been poor - needless to say i will never use them again.

Airlines do have standby cover; lack of crew is unlikely to have been the cause of the delay. What information do you have that the runway was" perfect " when the previous aircraft departed? Have you obtained a copy of the runway state and braking action at that time? Without firm evidence you will not be able to prove anything. Just accept that the captain, and the TO, made the safe call. This would encourage me to use them again rather than boycott them.