Just got back from Punta Cana to Manchester today - supposed to be on Thomson TOM105.
They did call it that.... BUT....
We ACTUALLY amazingly all got put on the old THOMAS COOK emergency recovery plane. We were given a strange story about aircraft breaking down in Barbados or Cuba or somewhere else. Were were also told we were being merged with the previous day Thomson PuntaCana/ Birmingham flight - which was also apparently broken down somewhere. But no clear information.
Why on earth did Thomson dump its passengers onto a horrible Thomas Cook 767 aircraft (I think the old recovery beast) - no IFE, sardine can conditions, horrible Thomas Cook food, no premier section? Why didn't they use their own recovery 767 - at least they have IFE and better food?
Also - I noticed on the way out on 20th January - the Thomson plane doing TOM104 Man/PuntaCana seemed to be an unusual one - some of the printing on seatbacks wasn't in English, and the "Premier Section" wasn't even separated by a curtain and didn't seem to have larger screens.
Is something horrible going on with Thomson aircraft right now?
There were lots of VERY unhappy passengers.
Heh, found this forum trying to find out what happened myself!
We were supposed to be flying back on the Wednesday from Punta Cana to Birmingham. We were told half an hour before pickup that our flight had been delayed by 24 hours, and we'd be picked up and taken to another hotel in Punta Cana (the Catalonia) for the evening. On pickup the next day from the Catalonia, we were all put onto two coaches - coach one ended up sharing the Thomson flight, coach two ended up on the Thomas Cook flight.We were told by our rep that our plane (TOM259) had experienced 'tech problems' and was in Barbados. We also heard a story that on Sunday the Thomson flight to Barbados had a bad landing and cracked the fuselage. As a result they ended up sending our plane (TOM259) to Barbados to get the people stuck there, and put all of the Birmingham passengers that should have been flying Wednesday on the planes back to Manchester on the Thursday - both the Thomson and Thomas Cook flights. I don't know what the truth is, because the Thomson reps made themselves conspicious by their absence...
Being on coach two we were on the big Thomas Cook A330 - not as roomy or comfortable as the Thomson planes (leg room seems pretty similar, but the seats and aisles are very narrow), and the IFE was a bit rubbish, but better than what you had, from the sounds of it. :s People that paid for Premier seating weren't allowed to sit in the Thomas Cook equivalent, and quite a few groups were split up all over the plane when they'd paid to be sat together. Also, the Thomas Cook crew hadn't been told that they'd be getting extra passengers, so didn't have hot meals ready (they ended up giving us the microwave meals you pay extra for, so perhaps that was actually a plus...). And the major downside was after a 24 hour delay we ended up in Manchester, so had to have a 2 hour coach journey added onto our travel time and also had to stump up an extra £20 for parking as we'd arrived so late. Bit of drama and a bit annoying as we were supposed to be back at work today, but I guess these things happen. Hopefully we'll be able to get everything sorted via travel insurance, that's what it's for!
Not sure why the TOM105 was a Thomas Cook plane - do they use the same plane for the Wednesday Birmingham/Punta Cana flights as the Manchester/Punta Cana flights? I wouldn't have thought so, but I know very little about the finer points of airport organisation. I'm assuming they must do, otherwise it means they have TWO planes broken down in Barbados!
Lets say she was having a senior moment 
at Boots at the airport! lol 
