ThomsonFly what a poor airline

Flybynight,

Good points raised and understood, but I think that the public as a whole is split into two areas.

Firstly there is the low fly division on ThomsonFly which we all know how it works, you book cheap flights and just want to get from A to B as cheaply as possible, however you are still attached to your tour arm of Thomson Holidays, which is where the difference is. You find a holiday go to the travel agent and book everything in one package, jobs a god un. Now take the average Jo public, they don’t know anything about the low cost division, they get to airport and board the aircraft and are dealt this appalling service which I experienced inbound and outbound, ok crew might be having a bad day still the service levels should be of a high calibre regardless how much you have paid for your flights or what mood the crew are in, again we did a package deal for flights, transfers and a weeks cruise with Thomson, so I am thinking along the lines of no this is not low cost in fact it was quite expensive.

These are two areas in which package and low cost don’t fit together as a business, as for the aircraft you mentioned that the regional 767’s have had only seat upgrades that’s fine but the state of the interior was poor, again your company seem to push all the stops out for long haul and don’t give a dam for the short haul sectors, as it seems short hall is just low cost.
I think realistically there should be no difference on short haul service and long haul, yes it was only a two hour flight so what, I have paid for it and I want good service, plus if I was to fly on your long haul this experience would put me of for life, as I said above keep things similar.

I still think that since the merger of Britannia and TUI things have degraded, and it’s a shame as most folk would always know who Britannia were and was always impressed by the service you provided, yes the aviation market is changing but just trying to be one step ahead of the game goes along way.

Rgds

Andy

As crew on the big blue plane I can honestly say that our long haul product is second to none these days, having joined in the old days of “BY” our service long-haul is far more superior to what it was.

Long haul aside and on the subject of short haul…. All I can say is perhaps crew wise you caught them on a bad day, we all have bad days no matter what profession we work in (we’re only human), perhaps that’s what happened on your flight??? There’s days when I don’t want to be in the big blue tube and days when I have a really great day – great crew + great passengers who really appreciate the service and the banter and all that. Yes our short haul has changed, it’s adapted to a changing market of low-cost everything thanks to the arrival of FR and EZY and the likes. Our fares are lower and you get what you pay for – gone are the days of running out with hot bread rolls on short haul and squash for the kiddies – in has come “apparently” what the travelling public wants, which in all fairness on a 2hr journey do you really expect to be dined and wined and treated like an Arabian prince for £24.99 including taxes??? Try popping into the Ritz in Mayfair with £25 in your pocket and see where you get.

Just a couple of other points of interest…..

– Upgraded cabins – are long-haul only, short-haul 767’s have been fitted with leather seats but these aircraft are highly utilised sometimes 3 rotations a day in the Summer months to keep fares low so maybe that answers why aircraft become a bit shabby. They are often on the ground an hour, that’s disembarking and boarding in that time, would you really appreciate hearing “flight TOMXXXX is delayed for an hour due to heavy cleaning of the inbound aircraft?” I understand your delay was for other reasons but aircraft + on the ground + delay = ££££.

– IFE – Ok sometimes things go wrong, did you ask for a refund, no one would have refused. As for selling headsets, I can assure you that I wouldn’t be selling them if it was broken (I’m after an easy life it wouldn’t be worth mine or anyone else’s time), maybe they sold them and then it didn’t work??? Again no one would have refused you a refund. Tech issues happen, planes, trains, cars and TV’s they all break down from time to time. Again do you want to sit a further 2 hours + whilst an engineer fixes the problem so you can watch re-runs of AB-Fab??? I guess not.

– Catering – or Aldo Zili to be precise. Meals have received a very warm reception with the exception of a few who have turned their noses up saying “I don’t like foreign food” or “I’d rather pie and chips” however the best I had on a recent flight- “I don’t eat curry!”. I didn’t have the heart to tell the lady it was Italian – bless. You can’t please everyone, but having seen 10 years of in-flight catering on both the big blue bird and many others – it is a vast improvement.

– The Tui takeover – Ok the company has changed from back in the day, however in terms of crew many of us “BY lot” are still here we’ve not changed. When Tui marched in they didn’t march us all out and march in a whole load of blue clad robots.

– Seat plans – There does seem to be a problem with the layout shown on all tickets at present. I think (and it’s only my guess) that the method used to produce these is being updated with the new configs as all flights seem to have this problem. PSU are fully aware and realise that we don’t just fly 757’s so when you call them they will advise you different. Did you call them pre-departure to arrange seats???

Well hope this may offer some help to your questions or gripes, I can only say I have had good and bad flights with say Virgin, but I don’t refuse to fly with them from a couple of bad experiences, the good ones will always out way the bad.

😉

Britannia was a quality airline with superb crew which probably accounted for their popularity, constant awards and accolades, but then came TUI!

I’ve recently bought a villa in Lanzarote and more often than not use Monarch scheduled or TCX, never had a problem with either to be fair.

Add XL to the list of poor A/L

Not flown charter in recent years other than XL fron HUM last year. never again. I dont think they give a flying fig for customers.
Inbound from PMA, the turnaround was over 2 hrs, avg 45mins all other a/l. Our flight was delayed, no maintenance appeared to be taking place, and guess what, diverted into MAN then bussed back to HUM, due to HUM curfew, therefore what was expected to be late evening arrival turned out to be 5am, Was I cynical enough to suggest to XL this was a positioning move as there were no XL flights out of HUM
Outward flight was just as bad, 3 hr delay due to no crew(obviously necessary!!), then diversion into LGW(including a flyaround due to overshoot)to pick up more passengers(not advertised) final arrival 5 1/2 hrs late
😡 😡 😡

Book a flight-only with a charter company and more often than not, you are paying way more than you would with a scheduled airline.

From memory, last week I was looking for flight only to Cancun, Mexico from Glasgow. Continental Airlines via New York were cheapest, ThomsonFly were dearest of the all airlines, including three charter airlines going direct.

I’ve never flown with TOM. I did fly with BY on a 732 in 1983 but that probably doesn’t qualify me to comment on whether TOM are any good. However I do find this point that keeps recurring interesting.

Quoting T5 merely as one example:

As somebody else mentioned, if you get what you pay for, you should be expecting the same service as you’d get on a 5-star airline

When you book a package holiday you buy lots of services, flights included, from one company, but those services are actually provided by lots of different companies, or at least divisions. I think you’d be surprised if you saw the breakdown of how much you pay for what, just how little you actually pay for your flights. Charter flights generally operate with tiny profits from each passenger they fly, sometimes as little as pennies.

I understand that you may be paying thousands for the holiday, but if most of that went on fantastic flights what would be left to pay for all the other things you’d expect of your package? So I’m afraid if it is true that you get what you pay for, you’re not going to get much on your average charter flight.

That said charter, loco or full service, there is no excuse for miserable, disinterested crew!

1L.

Have you not heard the expression.. “you only get what you pay for”

Yes, although this is not an expression commonly associated with package deals (where flights are operated by charter airlines). As somebody else mentioned, if you get what you pay for, you should be expecting the same service as you’d get on a 5-star airline… or even better!

Hence the reason TOM have refurbished their 767s on long haul with better seats, better seat pitch and upgraded food.:rolleyes:

According to the onboard info we had our meals created by some top chief, by the way I wouldn’t book a table in his restaurant!, also I take it that there short sector 767 are not benefitting to the upgrade. Which beggars the question if you are only referbing long haul why should short haul suffer as at the end of the day a product is a product whatever distance you are travelling in.

I suppose this will only get worse now since the recent take over’s leaving really only two main players in this field, god help First choice as they are now in the hands of Thomsonfly.

Hence the reason TOM have refurbished their 767s on long haul with better seats, better seat pitch and upgraded food.:rolleyes:

I flew with Thomsonfly from gatwick to Cancun on 24 dec, in fact we departed a day late, the plane was a 767 and to be honest you would get more comfort from your average bus. Food awful with service to match.

Have you not heard the expression.. “you only get what you pay for”

If that was the case with ThomsonFly you should be getting a better service than Virgin or Emirates offer.

Have you not heard the expression.. “you only get what you pay for”

Thomsonfly have been on this slippery slope for sometime but ha ho they are a low cost airline now. I Have to say every time I see the crews at work, they spend much of their time ranting on about how cr@p their company is now. I’m afraid the company are no longer the big fish in the little pond they once were.

Regardless of their low-cost statue, unlike Easyjet and Ryanair, Thonsonfly still have their package holidays attached to them, this company portrays themselves as the leading expert in holidays. So you pay £xxxxx for you two week holiday and the first impression you get on their own airline is a disgrace.
They either need to go back to basics and continue their holiday side of things or scrap that and go no frills. Seriously though the 767’s are in a pretty dire shape and this will put customs off and book with another company.
I will be writing to Thomsonfly about what happened and will see what reply I get back.

Thomsonfly have been on this slippery slope for sometime but ha ho they are a low cost airline now. I Have to say every time I see the crews at work, they spend much of their time ranting on about how cr@p their company is now. I’m afraid the company are no longer the big fish in the little pond they once were.

It was mentioned that Thomsonfly pre-assign seating before the flight and I’m flying with them for the 3rd time in a few weeks. Does this mean that if I dont pay to select seats, I can’t choose my own at the self service check in kiosks at Manchester?

Regarding TOM, my first experience wasnt too great, with a 24 hour delay, however, on my flight to Verona with them last August, I found them ok, nothing too special but adequate. However, I have noticed a real slip in their reputation since changing from Britannia. It’s a shame, becuase in it’s time, Britannia was a the top of its game IMO.

Regards

Seats are choosen by them prior to you flight, even at check in you can not select your seats, the whole service is complete pants, it makes the likes of Easyjet shine.

It was mentioned that Thomsonfly pre-assign seating before the flight and I’m flying with them for the 3rd time in a few weeks. Does this mean that if I dont pay to select seats, I can’t choose my own at the self service check in kiosks at Manchester?

Regarding TOM, my first experience wasnt too great, with a 24 hour delay, however, on my flight to Verona with them last August, I found them ok, nothing too special but adequate. However, I have noticed a real slip in their reputation since changing from Britannia. It’s a shame, becuase in it’s time, Britannia was a the top of its game IMO.

Regards

So you choose First Choice because they are convenient, and not because of their outstanding service. BA don’t just get you to London though. They can get you to hundreds of destinations worldwide from there.

Considering I don’t live in London it doesn’t really matter to me how many destinations British Airways fly to from London, the only one of any use to me is London to Glasgow, and even then I prefer to use Air Berlin and Easyjet.

For me, part of the service is a direct flight from my local airport, plus comparing my British Airways flights and First Choice Airways flights, First Choice are far superior.

What has been your experience with British Airways losing your bags?

A few years back I flew from Lagos to Glasgow via Heathrow, my bags went missing and didn’t show-up for three weeks, after this all my trips to Nigeria were made by KLM.

(Think we are getting off-topic from ThomsonFly):)

Sounds like any airline these days to be honest.

I was on AA from LGW to Dallas a few months ago. We were sat at the holding point, when the crew got a call from maintenance telling them that the leaking coffee machine in the galley had to be fixed before we took off.

Returned to the gate, over an HOUR later we were on our way again, coffee machine duly replaced!

Thankfully I was in Business Class so got to catch up on some sleep, but the late arrival meant I got downgraded from First to Economy on my connection to LAX.

Sometimes it the stupidest things that can ruin a trip!

To be honest nearly all the charter airlines are the same and give the same service, although First choice do give a superior product to the rest even compared to traditional scheduled airlines on their long haul services.

However wilag you must have been unfortunate to have had crew that couldn’t have been bothered on your flights as you say, but all airlines have crew like this in one way or another. As for the state of the aircraft then i can’t comment but it was probably due for its heavy clean or may have had a short turnaround before your flight after ariving from another earlier in the morning because usually i have found there aircraft to be clean and tidy despite the amount of flights they sometimes do during the day in the summer season.