Overbooked charter flight

[English Tim]

Friends of mine have booked a P&O cruise. I’m sorry I don’t know on which ship but from the Caribbean. I am told that the aircraft was overbooked and so they are being put in an alternative, which doesn’t have catering or in-flight entertainment. it seems a bit far-fetched to me, but they are good friends and I trust what they say. Is anyone else able to shed any light on this topic?

[yorkshirephil]

6 minutes ago, English Tim said:

Friends of mine have booked a P&O cruise. I’m sorry I don’t know on which ship but from the Caribbean. I am told that the aircraft was overbooked and so they are being put in an alternative, which doesn’t have catering or in-flight entertainment. it seems a bit far-fetched to me, but they are good friends and I trust what they say. Is anyone else able to shed any light on this topic?

Sounds like they have been swapped from Tui to Maleath which P&O are using for charters. There is a full thread relating to this here 

 

[carlanthony24]

Sounds more like Maleth Aero operating out of Manchester and Gatwick. Easier just to point you to this thread. It does have catering only difference being No premium economy and no IFE. 

 

[terrierjohn]

5 minutes ago, English Tim said:

Friends of mine have booked a P&O cruise. I’m sorry I don’t know on which ship but from the Caribbean. I am told that the aircraft was overbooked and so they are being put in an alternative, which doesn’t have catering or in-flight entertainment. it seems a bit far-fetched to me, but they are good friends and I trust what they say. Is anyone else able to shed any light on this topic?

Not over booking, just a last minute new charter partner  because TUI dont have enough long haul aircraft available.

The planes being used are Airbus A330s, which have full catering and inflight catering and drinks service, but no in flight entertainment.

[English Tim]

Thank you for all your prompt answers. They’ll be happy to be fed and watered even if they can’t watch a video.

[molecrochip]

34 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

Not over booking, just a last minute new charter partner  because TUI dont have enough long haul aircraft available.

The planes being used are Airbus A330s, which have full catering and inflight catering and drinks service, but no in flight entertainment.

I’m going to say this again: Tui are providing all aircraft they have been contracted to provide. It has nothing to do with Tui.

 

The issue is down to Thomas Cook no longer being around in the Charter market,

[TigerB]

34 minutes ago, English Tim said:

Thank you for all your prompt answers. They’ll be happy to be fed and watered even if they can’t watch a video.

 

Hopefully, neither of your friends have coeliac disease. Our daughter flew on Friday with Maleth Aero to Barbados and, despite ordering one in advance, there was no GF meal for her. In fact, they had no other food on the aircraft that would have been suitable for her.  Not good!😠

[yorkshirephil]

8 hours ago, molecrochip said:

 

 

The issue is down to Thomas Cook no longer being around in the Charter market,

I know some things take a while to organise but  didn't Thomas Cook go into liquidation in 2019?

[molecrochip]

12 minutes ago, yorkshirephil said:

I know some things take a while to organise but  didn't Thomas Cook go into liquidation in 2019?

And the 19/20 season was cobbled together using scheduled services and having less capacity on ships.

 

Since then Covid has meant Virgin could provide the capacity Thomas Cook previously did. For this season, Virgin are using all of their planes again on their own services so have dropped out of the equation.

 

P&O have finally had to find a new Charter Operator. P&O had been looking for a long time but the charter market for this type of season long arrangement is poor with less operators than pre Covid.

 

Some people wrongly assumed they would be flying Tui and ended up on Maleth. The majority of those people were never flying Tui in the first place and had never been given flight details with any hint of Tui.

[Megabear2]

9 hours ago, molecrochip said:

I’m going to say this again: Tui are providing all aircraft they have been contracted to provide. It has nothing to do with Tui.

 

The issue is down to Thomas Cook no longer being around in the Charter market,

How long are these contracts running for?  If we are still down on supply due to a company collapsing in 2019 I assume the existing TUI one is maybe also nearing its end? 

Edited November 14, 2023 by Megabear2

[Megabear2]

7 minutes ago, molecrochip said:

And the 19/20 season was cobbled together using scheduled services and having less capacity on ships.

 

Since then Covid has meant Virgin could provide the capacity Thomas Cook previously did. For this season, Virgin are using all of their planes again on their own services so have dropped out of the equation.

 

P&O have finally had to find a new Charter Operator. P&O had been looking for a long time but the charter market for this type of season long arrangement is poor with less operators than pre Covid.

 

Some people wrongly assumed they would be flying Tui and ended up on Maleth. The majority of those people were never flying Tui in the first place and had never been given flight details with any hint of Tui.

That's down to P&O I'm afraid.  The telephone agents 99% of the time when asked state it will be TUI or failing that Virgin or BA or the equivalent.  Never a mention of unknown airlines, most likely to prevent flight (excuse the pun) by nervous bookers.

 

The furore and apology offered to travel agents also indicates that they too were not kept full appraised of the situation.  It's far too easy to shift the blame to customers for "assuming" but in this case it's totally down to P&O (and that's coming from someone who is fully aware of the real position and thinks P&O did nothing wrong - imagine how I'd see it if I was in the other camp).

Edited November 14, 2023 by Megabear2

[yorkshirephil]

1 minute ago, Megabear2 said:

That's down to P&O I'm afraid.  The telephone agents 99% of the time when asked state it will be TUI or failing that Virgin or BA or the equivalent.  Never a mention of unknown airlines, most likely to prevent flight (excuse the pun) by nervous bookers.

 

The furore and apology offered to travel agents also indicates that they too were not kept full appraised of the situation.  It's far too easy to shift the blame to customers for "assuming" but in this case it's totally d9wn to P&O (and that's coming from someone who is fully aware of the real position and thinks P&O did nothing wrong).

We know things are difficult, we have all suffered through covid, but there seems to be a pattern running through this whole scenario and I am afraid P&O need to stand up and be counted and accept that. They don't seem to learn either as now we have the emails and confusion around disabilities and the pathetic emails which are clearly causing confusion and upset, especially as it is likely affecting their core clientele the most. 

[molecrochip]

I’m actually trying to point out that Tui did nothing wrong.

 

I’m also trying to point out what led us here - I accept that P&O could have tried harder.

 

Call centre staff are trained to give example airlines and then explain that flight details including confirmation of airline will be around 14 weeks out. 

[molecrochip]

Also, re Amblifit in Barbados. P&O provide details to the ground agents at Barbados. It is then in the hands of those ground agents.

 

Unlike big airports, Barbados only has one Amblilift in use at a time which often leads to delays if more than one flight needs to use it. It’s bad.

[Megabear2]

9 minutes ago, molecrochip said:

Call centre staff are trained to give example airlines and then explain that flight details including confirmation of airline will be around 14 weeks out. 

Call centre staff can only do as they are taught.  There are ways to make sure there are no misunderstandings, particularly when these cruises are being sold 2 to 3 years in advance.  I'm totally aware TUI have done nothing wrong but put yourself in the shoes of someone booking who is offered an airline name when booking and entering into a contract they personally are locked into with no option to but complete it (probably at high cost) or lose money and yet P&O appear to change it with impunity?

 

And then we get, as Yorkshirephil says, things like my walking stick fiasco (perhaps you could comment on that thread to help my despair!!)

Edited November 14, 2023 by Megabear2

[yorkshirephil]

3 hours ago, molecrochip said:

 

 

Call centre staff are trained to give example airlines and then explain that flight details including confirmation of airline will be around 14 weeks out. 

Really, I am assuming you mean call centre staff at P&O because the call centre staff at the various T/A's most of us here use seemed to have no knowledge of Maleth and are as ticked off by the whole shambles as the customers are. 

[molecrochip]

At least one big travel agent was telling customers that Charters would be Tui or Virgin. P&O had never confirmed that point to the agent. 
 

The travel agent accepted they made an assumption and gave customers wrong information. P&O apologised for not being clear with TAs that it was Tui or the yet unconfirmed airline.

 

P&O have publicly confirmed that they effectively oversold PE expecting to agree a charter with an airline who had PE.

[yorkshirephil]

2 minutes ago, molecrochip said:

At least one big travel agent was telling customers that Charters would be Tui or Virgin. P&O had never confirmed that point to the agent. 
 

The travel agent accepted they made an assumption and gave customers wrong information. P&O apologised for not being clear with TAs that it was Tui or the yet unconfirmed airline.

 

P&O have publicly confirmed that they effectively oversold PE expecting to agree a charter with an airline who had PE.

It is to a degree understandable that a TA could make such a mistake, lots of us did, we know what the small print says but custom and practice drives assumptions. P&O had no option but to confirm they had oversold PE because it is a fact. They just handled it badly and as usual their customers suffered the consequences.

[Cash123]

Quote "Some people wrongly assumed they would be flying Tui and ended up on Maleth. The majority of those people were never flying Tui in the first place and had never been given flight details with any hint of Tui."

 

Not true in our case, I booked for 6 of us and we all had TUI in our flight details, it was only in September that 4 of us received emails saying P & O had changed the flights to Malath, when I spoke to P & O about this they informed me that anyone who had confirmation their flights would be with TUI would not be changed but it made no difference.

 

They must have known in August when we booked the situation re flights so I can understand them saying that some people would be advised as to what airline they would be going on was the correct thing to do but in our case we had confirmation that it would be on TUI.

[terrierjohn]

13 hours ago, molecrochip said:

I’m going to say this again: Tui are providing all aircraft they have been contracted to provide. It has nothing to do with Tui.

 

The issue is down to Thomas Cook no longer being around in the Charter market,

Sorry if my comment upset you Moley, I was merely stating my view that if TUI had had more long haul aircraft available, then P&O would probably have contracted for them.

[molecrochip]

4 minutes ago, Cash123 said:

Quote "Some people wrongly assumed they would be flying Tui and ended up on Maleth. The majority of those people were never flying Tui in the first place and had never been given flight details with any hint of Tui."

 

Not true in our case, I booked for 6 of us and we all had TUI in our flight details, it was only in September that 4 of us received emails saying P & O had changed the flights to Malath, when I spoke to P & O about this they informed me that anyone who had confirmation their flights would be with TUI would not be changed but it made no difference.

 

They must have known in August when we booked the situation re flights so I can understand them saying that some people would be advised as to what airline they would be going on was the correct thing to do but in our case we had confirmation that it would be on TUI.

I accept that a a small number of passengers were changed from Tui to Maleth, and I’m sorry you were affected. But this wasn’t the case for the majority who had no flights confirmed at that point.

[Megabear2]

12 minutes ago, molecrochip said:

At least one big travel agent was telling customers that Charters would be Tui or Virgin. P&O had never confirmed that point to the agent. 
 

The travel agent accepted they made an assumption and gave customers wrong information. P&O apologised for not being clear with TAs that it was Tui or the yet unconfirmed airline.

 

P&O have publicly confirmed that they effectively oversold PE expecting to agree a charter with an airline who had PE.

Okay that's it for this season. 

 

Now the big one.  What are the plans for 2024/5 and 2025/6? These cruises are on sale, people are booking PE, people know there was a mess this year ... so is enough PE being provided for what's being sold, is the contract with Maleth in place for these years, is the TUI contract confirmed and still in place, are P&O agents and travel agents fully up to date and telling people it could be Maleth (assuming this is a long term contract) and basically are P&O being totally honest and clear?  Lessons learned are important as is total honesty.

[Interestedcruisefan]

2 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

Okay that's it for this season. 

 

Now the big one.  What are the plans for 2024/5 and 2025/6? These cruises are on sale, people are booking PE, people know there was a mess this year ... so is enough PE being provided for what's being sold, is the contract with Maleth in place for these years, is the TUI contract confirmed and still in place, are P&O agents and travel agents fully up to date and telling people it could be Maleth (assuming this is a long term contract) and basically are P&O being totally honest and clear?  Lessons learned are important as is total honesty.

Very good question

[molecrochip]

4 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

Sorry if my comment upset you Moley, I was merely stating my view that if TUI had had more long haul aircraft available, then P&O would probably have contracted for them.

I agree wholeheartedly that if Tui had more planes then they could have helped. I read your comment as Tui not supplying the full quota of aircraft they had contracted for. I’m trying to be fair and not blame Tui for something which wasn’t their fault.

2 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

Okay that's it for this season. 

 

Now the big one.  What are the plans for 2024/5 and 2025/6? These cruises are on sale, people are booking PE, people know there was a mess this year ... so is enough PE being provided for what's being sold, is the contract with Maleth in place for these years, is the TUI contract confirmed and still in place, are P&O agents and travel agents fully up to date and telling people it could be Maleth (assuming this is a long term contract) and basically are P&O being totally honest and clear?  Lessons learned are important as is total honesty.

I believe the contract for Maleth was announced as being for one season. I believe options for next year are still being finalised.

 

My thoughts are that Virgin and BA are still due to receive more new planes next year. If these are used to increase their fleet then it may create capacity which P&O can buy on Fridays and Saturdays.

[Interestedcruisefan]

5 minutes ago, molecrochip said:

I agree wholeheartedly that if Tui had more planes then they could have helped. I read your comment as Tui not supplying the full quota of aircraft they had contracted for. I’m trying to be fair and not blame Tui for something which wasn’t their fault.

I believe the contract for Maleth was announced as being for one season. I believe options for next year are still being finalised.

 

My thoughts are that Virgin and BA are still due to receive more new planes next year. If these are used to increase their fleet then it may create capacity which P&O can buy on Fridays and Saturdays.

And/or people might actually enjoy flying with Maleth?

 

As much as people can enjoy long haul flights?