RBell11,
When you went ahead with a solicitor, did the 'costs' not outweigh the 'damages' or did DH have to pay the court costs??
I'm a YEAR into a claim with DH and of course they are disputing everything. Our hol was more in the area of £4000, so I decided to contact a solicitor, but I am covered for legal expenses by my 'home cover', thus making it less of a risk. Although I'd say that they can't really dispute that we were left on a plane for 17hrs without food or drinks!! Then spent the majority of the hol in bed with food poisoning! Unless they are saying we imagined the whole thing, all 300 of us!!

Stewart,
thanks for the info, I apreciate now that ATOL is only a financial bonding facility.

I don't know if it's a legal requirement for a company to respond to a customer's complaint - but again, I agree with you that a reputable company should.

Strangely, when I posed my question to D.H. they assured me that Human Resources would write to me in due course. Not sure why personnel should become involved in this matter; would have thought it more in the Customer Relations area.

Thanks, Mike

Lisab
Are you saying you were trapped on a plane for 17 hours or could you come and go freely for food and water. Because if you and your family were on a plane for the length of time you should be a criminal case!
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Hi futurebride,
Yes, 17and a half hrs without getting off!! Ten hours before the kids were given a drink and 4 1/2 hrs before we got off we were told that the staff were 'out of hours' and not to 'bother' them for anything, not even a drink of water!
It was quite frightening too as the 'smokers' on the flight were EXTREMELY hostile and it really was quite riotous!
We were even told off (actually, we were told we'd be 'put off the aircraft!) for helping ourselves to pillows (after being told that there wasn't any by the staff, even though we had seen them in the overhead compartments.
We got one small meal each in all of this time.
It really was horrendous.
Lisa,x

Was this ten hours on land or in air? Did this occur on departure or return?

Regardless this is a disgrace and I would take the matter to court or at least contact the media for instance watchdog or holidays from hell. Its criminal what they did to you and your family.

Lisa B's story sounds horrendous. I'd like to know more.
From your post it sounds like the 17 hours were spent on the plane before departing for holiday (so in the U.K. presumably) as you said you then spent most of the hols in bed with food poisoning.

You need to speak to a solicitor on this matter - and soon. I canot understand how you've let them get away with this for a YEAR. Ring Ros Fernihough on 01922 621114 today. Don't worry about the costs. If you've not progressed on your own after a year you'll bever succeed without professional help. Whatever damages are recovered are infinately greater than keeping 100% of nothing.

Please tell us more though about the reasons DH gave for keeping you on the aircraft.

Sorry, I didn't explain this properly, '17 hrs without getting off', meant seventeen hours spent on the journey................

We were delayed 2hrs at Manchester (not included in 17hrs), we then went to pick up passengers at Gatwick (although when I booked I stated that I'm a nervous flyer and wanted DIRECT Man-Jamaica, which is what was booked, then this changed 2wks before we left, I only found this out because I called to check that the flight was still leaving at the correct time to book the mini-bus. I was told that we would be leaving 2hrs earlier so we could pick up at Gatwick.)
When we checked our baggage in we were handed a letter saying that the flight would be diverting to The Azores to pick up fuel as the aircraft wouldn't make it to Jamaica as it was too small (>????WHAT????). Air Luxor refueling at a Portugeese Island?? Do you think the price of fuel might have had something to do with it because that very same plane made it HOME from Jamaica without having to refuel!!
Anyway, all in all the flight was 16 1/2hrs, then we taxied around Jamaica airport for an hour as they said they couldn't find steps to get us off.
ONE MEAL, a couple of drinks (like I said, whilst flying, TEN hrs before we could persuade staff (who spoke VERY little English) to give children a cold drink.
People were smoking on board, one lady had some sort of diabetic 'episode' because her medication was in the hold. People were threatening staff with violence (which we couldn't really blame them!). The My Travel Rep that was on board because of the language barrier was crying. (And I haven't even mentioned the Spanish film as our entertainment on this awful flight or the fact that we wern't allowed to use the loo for the many hours we spent on the ground)
Of course to make matters worse, by the time we got to the Hotel, all of the food facilities were closed. So from our evening meal Christmas night (25th), it was breakfast on the 27th before we had anything other then a plane meal.
Then we had a not so great hol with food poisoning.
Then on the flight home, everything was going okay, until we arrived at Gatwick. Those flying on to Manchester were told to stay on the plane. Over an hour later, someone said that they had overheard staff say that they were 'out of hours'. No-one came to tell us anything, we eventually decided to get off and go and get our baggage. Still there wasn't anyone to talk to. We were so upset and exhausted, but had to go and queue for an hour at Hertz car hire, then drive 5hours home, really far too tired to drive it was dangerous but we just wanted to go home. It cost us £220 for 2 cars.
My Travel are not excepting ANY responsibility, we have names of MANY people who will also have complaints.
I have got a solicitor, but it's dragging along, mainly because of the food poisoning aspect of the claim. I know some people have accepted a few hundred pounds compensation, but I still feel sick when I think about it and not to mention that Christmas/New Year and my Wedding Anniversary were ruined because of this firm.
I will let you know how it goes, but aviation laws are strange ones!!
Lisa,x

Thanks, Lisa, that's a lot clearer now.

Looks like the only mater you can realistically complain to DH about is their failure to fly you back to Manchester from Gatwick. But, did you give them the chance to fly you back (albeit late) or did you elect to hire a car yourself ?

I've been in this position myself many years ago. Dumped at Gatwick with the promise of a coach journey back to Manchester. My wife and I and about 6 other passengers simply booked the British Caledonian scheduled flight (s it was then) from LGW to MAN and passed th bill to the Tour Operator (cannot recall who it was) stating that I had a meeting arranged for early the following day and my presence was essential. They paid.

Hate to say, but the airline are only obliged to get you from A to B and they can use ground transportation if necessary. If they offered a coach or rail travel and you declined you probably don't have a claim for the car hire costs. Your treatment throughout has been abysmal. If you can prove that your arrival at your hotel was significantly later (say 15 hours or so, or in the early morning - 08:00 rather than the previous night, say, 20:00) you can charge D.H. for one days loss of holiday. If it's a 7 night hol, divide the TOTAL holiday cost by 7 - claim that mount. Divide by 14 if a two-week holiday. There is a case in law that permits you to do this if you're on a package holiday (flight and accomm. arranged with D.H.) You might be best seeking legal advice on that aspect from your solicitor.

The T.O. has a legal responsibility for his suppliers actions and again, if you can prove your food poisoning resulted from the hotel's failure this aspect is covered under the 1992 Package Tour regs.

Cheers, Mike

Thanks Mike.
It seems that Airlines can pretty much get away with treating customers like cattle and get away with it. I know they've no obligation to feed, water, entertain you, or even let you use the toilets. This really does need re-addressing!
At Gatwick we were left sat on the plane, no-one came to speak to us, there wasn't anyone there from My Travel as we left the aircraft either. As far as we were concerned, we had been left to fend for ourselves with 4 children in tow!! I don't know how long we would have been left to sit there if we hadn't decided to get off, but due to our lack of confidence we had to make our own decision to leave.
I called another holidaymaker who told us that hours after we had left, a My Travel rep appeared and told them that there 'might' be a flight in 5 hours time. As you say though Mike, we had work the day after, holidaymakers have lives to go back to post-holiday! We couldn't hang around on My Travel's advice that there 'might' be transport.
As far as we are concerned, we didn't get ANY information about other travel arrangements and we tried our best to seek out that info ourselves before leaving the airport.
I think we arrived about 10hrs later than we should have, but that's really not a huge problem, it's all those hours trapped on the flight without enough food and drink, also it was quite frightening with the abuse and threats of violence going on.
We called out the Doc at the resort, but only for one of us as it was £200 for the visit, so we all used same medication. We certainly didn't have a spare £1600 for us all to be treated.
There was also a lot of other things wrong at the resort (no entertainment most evenings, when this was in the contract etc.)
Thanks again, Lisa,x

Lisa,

looks to me like you need to focus your complaint. Ignore all the aspects that don't matter to you and cannot be compensated.

First, the medical issue. Did you have travel insurance? This would have covered you for the cost of consultations/medication on a per passenger basis minus a small excess - again per passenger. If you travelled without insurance to Jamaica you took one hell of a risk - and you were caught out.

Second, delays on the plane may seem lengthy to you but a detour via Gatwick and then the Azores is not too unreasonable - although inconvenient. I doubt you've any claim for that aspect. Arriving 10 hours late at resort could permit a claim if, say, you were to arrive at 10:00pm but got there at 08:00am - you've lost a night's accommodation.

Coming back sounds little fun either. When you landed at Gatwick if the airline expected a delay they are obliged to inform you at the earliest opportunity. They also have an obligation under the EC261/2004 rules to provide meals, refreshments and accommodation in keeping with the length of the delay.

Your decision to leave the plane at Gatwick interests me. How did you receover your luggage? Presumably you were ALL instructed to leave the aircraft, collect your luggage and await further information but I guess you decided to leave the group (with luggage) and make your own travel arrangements. Did you not think of contacting Airtours head office, or even visiting an Airtours/Mytravel desk in the airport to arrange onward transportation.

Again, at this time the airline has a responsibility to provide transportation to your destination, or to accommodate you until that can be arranged. They should also have made available to you telephone/fax or email capability in the event of a lengthy delay to permit you to make suitable arrangements.

However, their failure to provide these relatively inexpensive provisions will in no way compensate you for the hire car costs (£220).

Finally, you say that there was no entertainment most evenings. Did you point this out to the rep. in resort or make any kind of complaint at the time. Failure to have done so will give the Tour company the chance to say they were not given the opportunity to resolve this issue.

I'd love to know what advice has your solicitor has provided but appreciate that's private. I'm not sure you have a claim that will stand up to scrutiny as it stands.

I hope I haven't piled more disappointment on to you.

Mike

No, don't worry Mike, you haven't dissapointed me, there were plenty of 'breach of contract' issues with the hotel which I don't want to bore you with. Each thing was reported to the rep and a form filled out. There were entire families who sat in the hotel reception for 2 weeks on the off chance that a flight home might be sorted out. Of course it wasn't.
The Doctor at the hotel wanted cash up front, of which we didn't have £1600, also the money which we did take we needed for eating out as the food at the resort was awful and as you know had already made us all poorly. Yes we did have insurance, but with an excess of £100 each, so we'd still have been £800 out of pocket.
When we were left on the plane at Gatwick, there wasn't any instuction of any kind by anybody. We went to the Airtours desk, which wasn't staffed and we couldn't find anyone around. It was an absolute disgrace and we had just about had enough. I honestly think that My Travel representative's were keeping as far away as possible because there was a lynching party ready for them.
I know what you mean about 'keeping the complaint focused', which I did in my letter to my Travel, it was bullet pointed and easy to read. I will say though that people do get angry, sad, upset, emotional etc. about these companies treating us in this way and you saying that we possibly don't have a complaint about the flight, even though we were left hungry, thirsty, frightened and VERY, VERY angry is probably completely true. Had it been that there wasn't a hairdryer when advertised in the brochure or no mini-bar, we'd have been compensated because it's a 'breach of contract'. Personally I KNOW which is the most upsetting, but there are no specific laws to cover "Having the P**S taken out of you!"
Cheers for the info Mike, It's great chatting with you and I will of course let you know how we get on.
Lisa,x

Y'know, it would have been slightly less horrendous if they had provided free food and drinks for the amount of time spent on the aircraft which we should have been in our All Inclusive resort. Actually, ANY kind of food and drinks, gratis or non-gratis would have been good!!
I don't know if there are any laws relating to the fact that 4 and a half hours before we got off the plane we were told 'not to bother' the crew as they were out of hours and even refused to give kids water. No wonder there were riots!
Lisa,x

Lisa,

that last post of yours raises an interesting point. If you were all left on a plane for 4.5 hours with a crew that was "out of hours" and you were instructed "not to disturb them"........who was monitoring the necessary safety issues. Your security is paramount. Whilst on a plane there are many things that you shouldn't do - smoking is one of them. I believe the crew were negligent in their care of you. Report this aspect to the Civil Aviation Authority.

Wife and I are off with Airtours to Egypt in Feb. Hope we don't suffer a fraction of your problems.

Regards, Mike

Thanks Mike, you are the first person to actually feel that there is something wrong with leaving 300 unattended for this length of time. The crew were sat in the back eating and drinking and being extremely rude. I couldn't believe what I was seeing!!
Mind you, they had been just like that through out the flight.
Lisa,x

Lisab

It appears to me that Mytravel were aware of the problems beforehand for example diverting the plane to re fule etc. Therefore they should have made sure their was enough food and water for everyone on the plane. Having not done this it shows a complete lack of respect for customers especially children.

Stick to the main points, that way they cant slide over the real issue and focus on the food issue in Jamacia. Thats something I learnt when I was dealing with them, in my final letter I focused on what they did wrong and in my conclusion wrote a few lines about how we and our families had saved for this wedding holiday just to hopefully appeal to their better nature.

Oh yes, it was NO diversion. When we got to the resort it turned out that the flight the week before had the same problem and the flight that arrived the middle of the two weeks was also sent via Azores. If it had been out of there control, then we could have some tolerance, but they knew full well what was going on weeks earlier. Makes me sick!

Hi LisaB
Just read all your posts. I've read some amazingly awful stories from customers of certain travel companys in the past few months but I think your story has to be about the worst. My heart goes out to you and all that were stuck on that flight for so long. I can not begin to imagine what it was like. Nearest i've been to something like that was being stuck on a train outside Northampton at night for about 6 hrs and the buffet car was closed!!
I'm really sorry to hear what has happened to you and hope that you get some sort of compensation. But I think your story would be best told on national TV. Email the address on this website. The granada media one. I'm positive they will be interested. All I can say is that you will be one of many telling their stories about certain travel companies.
This kind of thing HAS to be stopped from happening. How is it acceptable that a plane full of people are treated in such a manner?? I'm no legal expert like Mike but i'm sure there needs to be an immediate re-think surrounding the laws that govern the travel industry. As you say, you would get compensation if they failed to provide a "hairdryer" as listed but not for keeping you "banged up" on a plane for all that time.
Please let us know how you get on.
Best wishes to you.

Thank you Dizzy,
I will certainly let you know how it goes, I think it will be a while as D.H. aren't taking any responsibility. To be honest, the story I've told in this post is only the tip of the ice-burg. I just hope they stop doing this to people and wake up to the fact that a holiday is a MASSIVE event in a person's year and some people WILL NOT just think 'Hey ho, never mind, we'll chalk that one up to a bad experience' and start planning for next year.
Thanks for all of your support, Lisa,x

Just a quick note to encourage everybody to keep on to DH just after xmas we were offered £300 and we were thinking of accepting this but decided being as we were already booked for 2006 with DH we would try for some more .
The letter from DH told us to explain why we were not happy with offer and suggest what we were hoping for, so we asked for £500 and today we received an email confirming £500 has been deducted from our 2006 balance.
All in all for our inconvenience we got £138 in euros for the accommodation change and the upgrade to AI at Elba Sara but we had to stay at Geranios Suites about a 20min walk away, plus what we saved due to being given the upgrade from HB to AI.
Thanks to everybody who has given advice.

Cheers Mark