In February we were 36 hours late home from our holiday in Goa because the pilot refused to fly the plane (after the first lot of passengers were on board too).
Three hundred people should have boarded the plane at 2.00 am but half an hour after the first passengers boarded they got off the plane and no one told us why or what was happening.
At 4.00 am we were informed there was a problem but not told anything else.
At 5.30 am a representative from Thomas Cook arrived in the departures lounge to inform us that coaches would be arriving to take us to hotels until the plane was ready to fly, he didn't say when but did say that a part was needed for the plane and it was being flown in as some point.
At 6.00 am we were still waiting for the coaches.
At 6.30 am the first of the coaches arrived and we all had to go to arrivals and collect our baggage from the plane to take with us to the hotel. By this time tempers were starting to fray and people were becoming cross and argumentative. we had been up for more than 24 hours and should have actually been halfway home by now.
At 7.30 am some of us were still waiting for our coach and when it finally arrived at 8.00 am there wasn't enough room on it for all of us so Me and Billy ended up waiting with others for another half hour for a coach.
We arrived at our hotel at 9.00 am and in the reception area we were handed letters for us to give to our insurance company's when we eventually got home.
We checked into the hotel and went for some breakfast in the restaurant and immediately followed breakfast by going to be and having a bloody good sleep. Suffice to say later in the afternoon we left the hotel with our baggage and managed to get to the airport and fly home without a hitch.......... However, on arriving at home we had extra car parking to pay and were unable to go to work (we had telephoned from India to let them know) but this meant loss of earnings. In view of this we contacted the travel insurance company and sent in the necessary paperwork. We received a refund for the car parking fees but were informed that they would not be paying loss of earnings, no point in arguing with them I said, so we left it.
In May. there was a program on BBC1 about Airlines failing to compensate passengers and it made me ask Google if it was too late for us to be compensated. Google returned with a website called Skymediator.com, I checked that it was a legitimate company and discovered that it is, so we filled in the form and supplied the documentation (scanned) requested for Skymediator to assess the claim. Imagine our happiness when we were informed that YES, we had a claim.
Thomas Cook denied the claim so Skymediator passed the claim on to their legal team and we signed the required forms giving permission for the claim to go to court, Skymediator take 25% of the compensation and do NOT charge for ANY services at all.
Skymediator will tell you straight if you are not entitled to compensation and why not. Skymediator is a global company anyone can use them and they give out loads of info on wrong doings by airlines. Did you know that if you are put on standby and you are late getting to your destination you can claim compensation??? Visit Skymediator.com and learn more about how you get ripped off by airlines.
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