Thomas Cook Airlines
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Flight cancelled and no communication for 24 hours
If I could give less than a star, I would! Our flight got cancelled and not a single one of the 350 passengers on that flight from JFK to manchester were informed about this cancellation. No emails, no calls, no texts.... just no communication at all. Apparently the aircraft was broken beyond repair (it never even made it from manchester to JFK, itwas already broken in England) and no substitue plane could be brought in. I had thankfully made it to the airport about 6 hours before my flight and only after running around trying to even find a single thomas cook employee I was told it was cancelled. at that point about 270 of the passengers had already been rebooked. I was not one of them. I was told to wait for the next list of people but not to expect to be able to fly out for at least 2 or 3 days because everything with their partner airlines was booked. An hour later, still nothing. At this point we're being brought up to the check-in counter where we continue to wait. for SIX hours I sat on the floor in front of the check-in counter with no information about when I would fly back to europe, watching more and more people getting rebooked and wondering why I was not on that list. There was at least 50-80 passengers there with me who never got rebooked that night. we were told to leave contact info and we'd be contacted after 8pm. well, 9pm came around and still no contact. As the airline was taking up too much space for too long at the airport they were being asked to leave and we were just shipped off to a hotel with the words "stay close to your phones, you will know by morning". None of us slept of course, as with every phone notification coming in we hoped it was thomas cook. Guess who never got contacted by morning. I proceeded to spent the next 14 hours on the phone with thomas cook in 3 different countries (UK, Germany and US), everyone kept telling me they knew nothing (even though this was the number given to us by the airport for contact) and that they couldn't help me specifically because I booked via expedia. When I contacted Expedia though (most kind customer service ever), they tried everything but couldn't help me because Thomas cook had taken possession of my ticket. So basically expedia tells me thomas cook has my ticket and thomas cook tells me they can't act because of expedia. at this point it's 5pm the next day and I am fed up so I go back to the airport without any of my bags (as we were told not to expect to fly out for days and were actually booked into the hotel by the airline for 3 days) but I just wanted to talk to someone in person and get some answers because there was still NO COMMUNICATION! I just wanted to have them give me ANYTHING, even if it's in 3 days, but to be able to sleep and relax I just needed confirmation. Well, cue another hour and a half of waiting because apparently there isn't even a thomas cook agent available until they open their check-in at 6:30pm for their one single flight out each day... When they finally do open, me and 4 other people were there who had still not been rebooked or heard anything. The supervisor that day made some calls then asked us to wait 15 to 20mins while he waits for an email.... so we stand to the side and wait and wait and wait and wait.... 45mins later he just vanishes! with no word to us. The supervisor of the day before shows up and talks to another one in our group and suddenly looks up, looks at me and goes "Why are you not on your way to your flight?" me: "what flight? He told us to wait" her: "you're on a flight to Frankfurt at 9:55pm tonight".... IT WAS 8:04PM!! Apparently 3 of us got a seat on that plane and the guy just forgot to inform the people waiting RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM before he left. so I hightailed it out, jumped a cab to the hotel, grabbed my bags and back to the airport.... I made it to my flight with only 15mins to spare. The lack of communication and compassion from this airline is APPALING! supposedly we're getting a full refund and an additional 600€ compensation but I believe it when I see it. during hour wait we found out that the exact same flight got cancelled last week as well and when I finally made it to Frankfurt, I met a lady in line for security who told me about her horror flight to Germany from Boston... oh and guess what? SAME AIRLINE! Never booking with them again!