Maleth confirms end of P&O partnership

[carlanthony24]

11 minutes ago, cheshire said:

The local BBC news has just reported that the Virgin Flight to Barbados had to return to Manchester this afternoon.  The flight left at just after 1pm nearly got as far as Dublin then returned an hour later.   No news on its replacement but Virgin obviously have greater resources to hand unlike Maleth.  

The flight has been cancelled they are in the process of re booking people onto an alternative service or via a connecting flight.

[zap99]

3 hours ago, Snow Hill said:

The grounding had started to revoked around the world, then last Friday when a door blew out on an Alaska Airways 737 Max leading to rapid decompression and an emergency landing, all 737 Maxs are ground in the Us, with airlines in Turkey and Central America also grounding 737 Max aircraft. This could be a further setback for 737s returning to service and complicate leasing arrangements.

FAA and others have temporarily grounded some 737-9 variants for inspection of the plug that some customers specify instead of a door. The majority of max's are the 737-8max. I have flown those on a number of occasions. TUI do not have any 737-9max's.

[Interestedcruisefan]

2 hours ago, cheshire said:

The local BBC news has just reported that the Virgin Flight to Barbados had to return to Manchester this afternoon.  The flight left at just after 1pm nearly got as far as Dublin then returned an hour later.   No news on its replacement but Virgin obviously have greater resources to hand unlike Maleth.  

Quick start a petition for P and O to not use Virgin either

 

Or 737 Max

 

Or give anyone seat 26a on any type of plane

 

With or without exit plugs. Just in case 26a is  an unlucky seat

 

 

 

 

Edited January 7 by Interestedcruisefan

[Presto2]

2 hours ago, jeanlyon said:

Not just Maleth then 🙂  this one says dense acrid smoke in the cockpit.  Not nice.

 

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/vs77#33884c6e

All of this isn't helping me to feel any better about my first 9 hr Atlantic flight this coming week. Anyone got a boat ?

[Interestedcruisefan]

Ps I'm more than happy to sign a petition asking for the above not to happen on Maleth

[sweep2907]

P&O are working furiously on a solution but there simply are not any as no airlines have spare capacity. It seems going forward once flights are all filled on TUI, then P&O will sell all further caribbean cruises as cruise only and it will be down to the passenger to source a flight. This is exactly what would happen if flying out to caribbean for RC, Celebrity, MSC etc

 

Those calling for immediate stop on using Maleth, means you again will need to find a flight to get you to your cruise and not sure people want to be involved in a lottery whereby P&O start cancelling your cruises over the next 3 months? Let's remember Maleth only contracted at this stage up until end of this current season.

[CarlaMarie]

 

This reply has been sent in response to a passengers review of their cruise and Maleth flight - 

 

"... We take all our guests’ feedback seriously and we are passing all relevant feedback over to the airline, which have taken this onboard to improve the services. Improvements have already been made to ensure clean facilities during your journey. Please be aware that the majority of our air sourcing for the Winter 24/25 Caribbean season for 14 night turnarounds from Barbados has been completed. We have confirmation that TUI will be operating these flights. We will have confirmation on the details for the remaining flights, including the Antigua departures in due course. Best Wishes, P&O Cruises Social Media Team"

[Guest]

7 hours ago, sweep2907 said:

P&O are working furiously on a solution but there simply are not any as no airlines have spare capacity. It seems going forward once flights are all filled on TUI, then P&O will sell all further caribbean cruises as cruise only and it will be down to the passenger to source a flight. This is exactly what would happen if flying out to caribbean for RC, Celebrity, MSC etc

 

Those calling for immediate stop on using Maleth, means you again will need to find a flight to get you to your cruise and not sure people want to be involved in a lottery whereby P&O start cancelling your cruises over the next 3 months? Let's remember Maleth only contracted at this stage up until end of this current season.

American lines don’t do charter flights. If you book “Flights through Celebrity” you just book via the celebrity website and they have a list of pretty much every flight available. They then book it for you with transfers if required. I’ve used it for BA flights to Rome. We still got to collect air miles which was nice!
 

However, on my first ever cruise with Princess back in 2007, they chartered a TUI flight to San Juan! 

Edited January 10 by Glitterati

[Cruiserjules]

On 1/7/2024 at 3:22 PM, molecrochip said:

They Tui planes were filled first as they were arranged first…. that means those who booked first got Tui. No science here.

 

A change.org petition never gets a Parliamentary debate. You need to use the official petitions website to get that. Along the way, those petitions are vetted for matters government can actually intervene on.

 

As this is a commercial matter, the government can’t intervene and would close the petition anyhow….. probably why it’s on change.org in the first place!

I'm not disputing this, but wonder just how early you had to book to get TUI.  We booked whilst onboard Azura in March 2022.... and we are flying Maleth.  

[terrierjohn]

1 minute ago, Cruiserjules said:

I'm not disputing this, but wonder just how early you had to book to get TUI.  We booked whilst onboard Azura in March 2022.... and we are flying Maleth.  

Probably would depend on which airport you were using, and the demand for the date you were booking. If you happened to choose a date with a high demand, then the TUI flight(s) could have been booked up very early, and these would have been on sale since Nov 2021.

[Cruiserjules]

1 minute ago, terrierjohn said:

Probably would depend on which airport you were using, and the demand for the date you were booking. If you happened to choose a date with a high demand, then the TUI flight(s) could have been booked up very early, and these would have been on sale since Nov 2021.

Yes, possibly.  After our horrific experience at Manchester to get to Barbados for that Azura holiday, we vowed never to fly from there again, and picked Gatwick instead!    When notified of the change to Maleth,,  we decided early on there's nothing we can do to change things and to just make the most of whatever happens..... after all its a flight to a fabulous holiday that we are very lucky to be able to take ...we shall see..

[Thedonkeycentrehalf]

12 hours ago, Cruiserjules said:

I'm not disputing this, but wonder just how early you had to book to get TUI.  We booked whilst onboard Azura in March 2022.... and we are flying Maleth.  

I think that far out it was more luck of the draw as they wouldn't have put the contracts in place when early bookings were made.

 

We didn't book our Britannia cruise we are on next month until September 2023.  There was still availability on both the options (Friday or Saturday flight).  We were already planning to take the Saturday flight but having seen someone posting the TUI/Maleth schedules on here (backed up by our TA), that sealed our decision.

[cheshire]

1 minute ago, Thedonkeycentrehalf said:

I think that far out it was more luck of the draw as they wouldn't have put the contracts in place when early bookings were made.

 

We didn't book our Britannia cruise we are on next month until September 2023.  There was still availability on both the options (Friday or Saturday flight).  We were already planning to take the Saturday flight but having seen someone posting the TUI/Maleth schedules on here (backed up by our TA), that sealed our decision.

We booked in October 23 for February 24.   We booked Tui premium and got four seats in Tui premium so it was still possible to get it at that stage. 

[jeanlyon]

6 hours ago, cheshire said:

We booked in October 23 for February 24.   We booked Tui premium and got four seats in Tui premium so it was still possible to get it at that stage. 

Yes but none of this means always that you will fly TUI because if something goes wrong with their aircraft you could be changed.

[cheshire]

6 minutes ago, jeanlyon said:

Yes but none of this means always that you will fly TUI because if something goes wrong with their aircraft you could be changed.

That’s the same with any airline anywhere in the world however as tui have a certain leeway in their fleet utilisation and crew bases the reality is if your booked Tui flight has a problem you’re Moore than likely to remain with Tui.   Book on a Maleth operated flight and reality is it will be Maleth no matter what. 

[Cash123]

Well it looks like we will be delayed leaving Antigua today as both Maleth flights are over 5 hours delayed, Passengers leaving today are being told that wont be leaving at least until 6.00pm

[CarlaMarie]

5 hours ago, Cash123 said:

Well it looks like we will be delayed leaving Antigua today as both Maleth flights are over 5 hours delayed, Passengers leaving today are being told that wont be leaving at least until 6.00pm

 

Hope your delay isn't too long and that you are kept up to date.

[Interestedcruisefan]

7 hours ago, Cash123 said:

Well it looks like we will be delayed leaving Antigua today as both Maleth flights are over 5 hours delayed, Passengers leaving today are being told that wont be leaving at least until 6.00pm

Over 4 hrs delay means big money claims

 

In the meantime enjoy the extra time on the ship (assuming you weren't waiting in the airport?)

[CarlaMarie]

57 minutes ago, Interestedcruisefan said:

Over 4 hrs delay means big money claims

 

In the meantime enjoy the extra time on the ship (assuming you weren't waiting in the airport?)

 

The amount of claims to be paid out on must be huge by now.

 

It doesn't appear the plane has left Antigua yet. 

[HalifaxYorksCruiser]

11 hours ago, CarlaMarie said:

 

The amount of claims to be paid out on must be huge by now.

 

It doesn't appear the plane has left Antigua yet. 

No payouts - flights took off with less than 3 hours delays and will probably make up an hour on return flight with tailwinds

 

[terrierjohn]

3 hours ago, HalifaxYorksCruiser said:

No payouts - flights took off with less than 3 hours delays and will probably make up an hour on return flight with tailwinds

 

Whilst an almost 3 hour delay is frustrating for the passengers, it was always quite common when we flew on package holidays, and quite often significantly longer, and we have experienced some fairly long delays on scheduled flights over the years.

 

 

[Thedonkeycentrehalf]

22 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

Whilst an almost 3 hour delay is frustrating for the passengers, it was always quite common when we flew on package holidays, and quite often significantly longer, and we have experienced some fairly long delays on scheduled flights over the years.

 

 

In my younger days, when going to gigs etc in London I didn't always make the last train back to the coast so would get a train to Gatwick and sleep there as it was warm and safe.  Occasionally you would get security disturbing you as you weren't supposed to sleep there so I would check the arrivals board and find a heavily delayed flight and say I was waiting to pick up my parents off that flight.

 

Not sure you'd get away with it these days but back then, apart from Ceefax there wasn't really any way of finding out if I flight was delayed.

[Solent Richard]

On 1/10/2024 at 8:37 PM, Glitterati said:

American lines don’t do charter flights. If you book “Flights through Celebrity” you just book via the celebrity website and they have a list of pretty much every flight available. They then book it for you with transfers if required. I’ve used it for BA flights to Rome. We still got to collect air miles which was nice!
 

However, on my first ever cruise with Princess back in 2007, they chartered a TUI flight to San Juan! 

 

But Celebrity's way comes at a price.

[Yorkie69]

Arrived for our Maleth Aero flight from Gatwick to Antigua at 06:00 this morning to be told that the flight won’t take off until at least 15:00. The frustrating thing is the fact it is apparent P&O and Maleth were aware of possible delays prior to this morning as the flight had been removed from schedules before last Wednesday and was showing as departing at from 15:00 last night. Had either the cruise line or Maleth contacted passengers prior to this morning we could have all avoided getting up at 5am to get to Gatwick. We have been told we cannot go airside until 09:30 and that will only be allowed if the flight hasn’t been further delayed. We have been given a £20 voucher to get refreshments but I would have preferred to have stayed in my hotel bed until nearer the time of departure.

It appears P & O haven’t learned from the poor souls who were dropped at Antigua airport and left overnight a few weeks ago despite knowing their flight wasn’t scheduled to leave until the following morning. Already decided that this will be our last P and O cruise (done 3 from Southampton in last 18 months) as we feel that we have been treat appallingly since we found out Maleth were to be used for our flight and we weren’t allowed to change airports or cancel. Our fears of major issues with this airline have now been confirmed! Let’s hope we get there sometime today but I am not at all confident! Apologies for the rant but there are 200+ irritated passengers at Gatwick check in and little help from P & O staff.

[SquishTheWhale]

That's a pretty significant delay- I'm assuming original flight was 9am ish? So you should be entitled under eu261 and your insurance. 

 

I'd be pretty annoyed if I'd got up at silly o clock to drive to the airport to find that out. Especially passengers that will have kids with them.