MyTravel Delay – BBC Report

The cost of bringing in Ait Atlanta would have been immense. While you could argue that they owed it to their customers it could be the straw that breaks the camels back!

Im just back from Kos flew from GLA with MyTravel outboude we diverted to Rhodes and the flight the week before us had a 12hour delay

This happened to my parents last year – but they were waiting in Northern Cyprus for the plane to pick them up. They had an extra 3 days in Cyprus – which is nice, but my dad works for himself and lost three days work, plus he had to pay compensation to his clients – he’s still trying to get adequate compensation from the tour operator. At least if you are stuck in the UK you can make the decision to go home and cancel the holiday. I assume their were people in Turkey with the same problem.

You would have thought they would have been something Sandy wouldnt you?

No matter how busy, you would have thought one airline somewhere would have had a backup a/c.

Gatwick… isn’t there and Atlanta 742 perminantly stationed there ready to go at a moments notices? Same for Titan aircraft.

as regardes to the backlog a replacement plane was found for the other flights luckily, but there are still some delays

Surly this flight creates a massive backlog of flights not just the return one to UK.

Mytravel did well when i flew with them chec k in staff at gatwick were nice flight crew laughed and were good staff at airport on coach and on ship and hotel were exceptional except when it came to leaving day and the resteraunt didnt open until 8am when we were supost to leave at 7:50 and we didnt get breakfast in apartmant like they said. but overall were exceptional even a/c was although delayed both ways.

Terrible story. One that doesn’t do any favours for the struggling MyTravel. Such a story would make holidaymakers look to other companies for their next trips.

And what a joke to say that passengers can ‘apply’ for compensation.

yeah, it has a report from someone who works for myt at lgw

Ah right, so that might make the BBC estimate of 300 people more acurate.

Those 767s went tech alot last summer did they not?

a.net is saying it is a 767

I imagine it would have been an Airbus, as far as I know, the 757s are at MAN and GLA? (Can anyone confirm?). I know MCEA,PIDS,JALC and RJGR are at MAN which just leaves one.(WJAN).

Nice to hear from you BTW Pembo, havent heard from you in a while 🙂

God, you have to feel for those people. Particularly those who were travelling for just a week. Wonder if it was a 757 or an Airbus. :confused:

Hundreds of British holidaymakers have been left stranded for two days by a series of delays at Gatwick.

More than 200 passengers arrived at the airport on Monday to check in for a flight to Turkey only to be told the plane would not fly for 24 hours due to technical problems.

Last night, as they prepared finally to board flight MYT1453 for Bodrum, they were informed it had again been cancelled and would not take off until today because of more problems.

Armed police were called to the south terminal’s departure lounge as tempers frayed, while a further 200 passengers waiting in Turkey were told by holiday reps that their flight home had been delayed because of a bomb scare in Britain.

“It was pandemonium,” said Paul Hamid, 26, from Ilford, due to fly to Turkey for a friend’s birthday. “There were children crying. Some people had collapsed on the floor while others were shouting and swearing. It’s been a nightmare.”

Their ordeal began on Monday after they arrived for the 7pm flight. As they waited to board the plane they were told it had been delayed until 10pm.

But at 1am tour operator MyTravel told passengers that due to technical problems they would have to wait until the following evening to depart.

When they arrived for a second time yesterday afternoon, they were told there was a further delay and, like the night before, they would not be flying until 10pm.

The incoming flight, they were told, had blown a couple of tyres on landing. By the time engineers solved the problem, cabin crew had exceeded their maximum working hours and were not allowed to fly.

The plane was not expected to leave Gatwick until 11.30am today – 40 hours late.

“There are a lot of very tired and irate people,” said George Nguyen-Xuan, 43, who was hoping to take his three children on holiday. “The kids are exhausted. Our week’s holiday has already gone down to five days, which is upsetting to say the least.”

When the flight was cancelled on Monday he and his children were left waiting for their luggage until 4am before returning home to Gipsy Hill. “When the same thing happened again the night after, we couldn’t even get our luggage, because they said it was already on the plane.”

He added: “There was no information and MyTravel seemed understaffed.” Ed Kessler, 32, was flying to Turkey with his girlfriend for a sailing holiday.

“When we get to Turkey we will have to catch up with the boat somewhere – but I don’t know if we will,” he said. “This was an expensive holiday and we’re thinking of not even going on it now, we’ve had enough. We are completely fed up. No one from the company is telling us what’s going on. We can’t get our luggage, they said it was taken up early because of security. It’s a rubbish excuse.”

Staff at the MyTravel helpline received so many calls that they left the phones off the hook, leaving switchboard staff at Gatwick to deal with angry passengers and relatives wanting to complain.

A BAA source told the Standard: “We are taking all the verbal abuse because MyTravel have taken their phones off the hook. It’s incredible.”

South terminal manager Andy Rozumski said: “The same thing is happening to passengers waiting to come home from Bodrum.

“Passengers there are being told by agents’ representatives that the problem may be due to security problems – which is not true.”

A spokeswoman for My Travel said the company was “very, very sorry” for the delays but said it was working hard to get passengers on their holidays as soon as possible.

Another report, with a slightly more realistic quote of 200 pax. Can you believe MyTravel took the phones of the hook and told the pax at the other end they had been a bomb scare!

This is really bad news. Lets hope they get some kind of DECENT compensation from MYT. With modern aircraft this problem shuldnt happen. Lets hope that next summer MYT has sorted its tech problems and runs a near perfec service, because no even th best airlines run on time!