andrewbates,

There can't be two flights with the same flight number operating at the same time. All flights have to have a unique number. It is possible to have the same flight number repeated on the same day, for example a morning and afternoon service, but not at the same time. It's rare (can't actually think of any) for this to happen though, airlines generally use flight numbers in sequence for their own reference as much as anything to avoid confusion. For example, BA's shuttles between Gatwick and Manchester are BA2901/2, then BA2903/4, BA2905/6 etc. These are repeated daily.

Tour operators sometimes have flights on other airlines where they don't serve that destination on that day, or at all. In your case, Thomas Cook are using Jet2. It's not necassarily Jet2 that are operating the flight for them (sub-charter), Thomas Cook are more than likely using Jet2 as the airline. Thomas Cook and Thomas Cook Airlines are two seperate entities. Thomas Cook are a tour operator and although they use Thomas Cook Airlines for the vast majority of flights, they also use other airlines such as Monarch and Jet2 on their package holidays.

Code sharing of flights between partner airlines happens all the time with schedule airlines. You may book a flight with BA for example, under a BA flight number, but it's actually an American Airlines flight. Some flights can have 3 or 4 codeshares! For example, the daily Etihad flight from Abu Dhabi to Manchester is EY015, but is codeshared with American Airlines as AA5992 and Flybe as BE6115 or the daily Singapore to Manchester with Singapore Airlines, SQ328 is codeshared with Virgin as VS7328. I went to Mauritius in 2007 and even though it was an Air France flight number, it was a codeshare with Air Mauritius. That's why you need to check the details carefully as you may expect to fly with one airline, but you're actually travelling with another.

Darren

Thanks Darren

Looks as though will have to wait until nearer the time and see if I get any notification from Thomas Cook that the flight times have been changed or not.

According to Jet2, LS781 is their scheduled service from Manchester to Gran Canaria at 15:50 on Saturdays.

But according to Manchester Airport, they also run a charter service for various tour ops within the TC group on Saturdays at 13:30 but they don't give a flight number. This won't appear on the Jet 2 website since it's not on retail sale. Both are shown in this page http://www.manchesterairport.co.uk/manweb.nsf/Content/laspalmas it doesn't look like a simple typing error on the departure time since, as you say, they do have different return arrival times.

So you are right to be concerned, because something does not add up. What date are you flying on? If it's early/late in the season I wonder whether they have cancelled the charter and consolidated the bookings onto the scheduled service?

Thanks Steve

Just looked at the link, they have the flights are from 7/5 onwards under both the scheduled and charter. I am travelling on 7/5.

As Thomas Cook just tell me it's as per my booking and they have no details of changes, I think this may just be a case of waiting to see but think I am more expecting to get notified that time has changed from 13:30 to 15:50 than the tickets when they come to have a different flight number.

A thought has occured...

.... does your booking mention anything about in-flight services, especially inclusive refreshments?

HI - booking pages online and invoice said not possible to prebook meal service on this flight.

that's OK then, I was expecting it to offer something which you definately wouldn't get on the scheduled service!

This is the Same Flight me and My Husband are on.We are not happy because we are going with Freinds and they have paid less but chose to book themselves and go on this flight.
We decided we would pay the extra and have better flight times.We have now been informed we are on the later flight and the other flight does not exist,But flight numbers are the same.If we had wanted said flight we could have saved £80.They say there are no other flights this day so we asked if we could go on the thursday instead.This is no problem if we pay another £400 !!.I wont be using thomas cook again thats for sure.Also going to Egypt next week too.

Are you saying that TC have confirmed to you that your flight time is changed or are you just in the same position as Andrew and only have the flight number to go on?

Thomas cook have confirmed our booking with the original flight number, that we are now due to fly on the same flight as our friends but 5 hours later than we wanted. This option was available when we booked but we chose to pay the extra for the earlier flight(which has now conveniently dissapeared). so to summarise we have paid extra for a flight that (a) never existed originally or (b) they want to charge us £400 instead of the balance of £286 to change to a day flight on the thursday.

you've lost me a bit there but raise something interesting.

are you saying that when you booked there were two sets of flight numbers as well as two schedules? Andrew was reporting one set of flight numbers with two schedules, if you have got a different number for the earlier flight it supports the theory that since you booked, but before he did, the early charter only flight has been cancelled.

back to your original query. I read it that when you booked you chose the early flight from a choice of two that TC offered. Was that original choice ever confirmed? Their T&Cs may give them the right to alter times later (up to 12 hours is the norm) but there would have to be a reasonable gap between the booking and the alteration - they can't just take your money and then turn round and say the details were wrong, that would be admitting an error in their details.

If the original choice was confirmed, how have you been told about the change? Was it specifically sent as a change announcement or have you just looked at some paperwork and noticed they snook it in?

Retiming flights when people think they have paid for convenient times is always a moot point, but if you had a different original flight number they haven't retimed the flight - it shows they cancelled it and transferred you to another. If both were clear, differently priced options originally then they have moved you to a cheaper holiday. But you can't compare prices with what your friends have paid. Technically you don't pay for convenient times, they'll claim the different flights simply have different prices and there is no link!

If they only showed the two schedules without flight numbers or with the same one it's harder to prove what's going on.