gertie3751

Any Brits out there know anything about Thomas Cook flights? Are they reliable? Do they change their schedules frequently? What's their record on being on time?
I presume they mainly cater for package tourists on Thomas Cook holidays but they appear on Skyscanner which gives information about booking independent one way or return flights. Never done it before, just wondered if anyone here has.

Steve_James

Hi Gertie - I've used Thomas Cook Airline several times.

Yes - they cater mainly for people on their package holidays.

I've never had a problem regarding reliability and they're usually pretty punctual.

I'd have no worries about booking them. Have a look on their own website - it might possibly be cheaper.

Hope this helps ...

Steve

flanneruk

I've not flown them, but one of the flannerclan works for them.

I don't know what proportion of their passengers are on their package holidays (like FlyBe or Monarch, a lot of their flights are geared to villa owners), but the basic point about Thomas Cook is that many of their flights run <b> as if they were a package holiday support airline</b>

So their winter (Nov-April) schedules are completely different from their summer (May-Oct) ones in a way Easyjet's or Ryanair's just aren't. And many flights run on a once-weekly frequency, so if you go out on a Tuesday, the Tuesday in 7 or 14 days is the only way you're going to get back. In a way, on these routes, it doesn't matter how punctual they are: if you miss the Sunday flight from Goa to Birmingham, it'll be a week till the next one. The relative says timekeeping's neither a great strength nor a great weakness: assume they'll be half an hour late (just like any other UK-based airline), but a lot later on one in every hundred or two flights.

Unlike Ryanair, the relly says, there's no record of cancelling flights at short notice leaving you stuck in, say, Florida after you've gone out there. That's not to say flights don't get cancelled - but if it's because of poor demand, there are months' notice, and if it's because of breakdowns they do - eventually - get you home.

gertie3751

Thanks guys. Here's the dilemma: after a few glasses of wine last night I booked myself an Easyjet flight to Mykonos (&pound;30). Haven't as yet booked a return to LGW but am pondering whether to get the ferry from Mykonos to Naxos and back to Athens and LGW, or from Mykonos to Naxos to Santorini and back from there. None of this is new to me; what puts me off Santorini is the herds of tourists. What puts me off Athens is the big city hassle.
Lots of people would envy me such a dilemma.

sshephard

My wife and I flew FlyThomasCook out of LGW this past summer and had very good experience. In fact they even let me change to a different flight and airport because another cheap airline we had booked with (Thomsonfly) had changed a departure time making it impossible to make the FlyThomasCook flight.

I live in the US and remember calling their number early one morning expecting a runaround. Instead, the phone was answered on the first ring by a real (and friendly) human.

The flight that we took left at around midnight for Corfu from LGW. The plane was 1/3 filled. The seats were well-worn and I don't think anything but water was offered on the flight but we weren't expecting anything.

Carolina

I prefer Thomson fly to Thomas Cook and find them more reliable. Both companies have a mixture of package tour clients and flight only clients. My husband had a bad experience with Thomas Cook last year when he was delayed for several hours and then flown to Manchester. As he had paid extra for a flight to East Midlands, he was less than pleased. Thomas Cook then provided a coach for the journey to EMA. It took he 13 hours to get to EMA from Corfu instead of about 3.

Carolina

I see you've booked easyjet for your outward flight. I have had a lot of good experiences with easyjet. They have just opened up a lot of flights to Greece this summer, in part because they have bought GB Airways. I am using easyjet this summer for 3 trips to Greece, in part because of the fantastic prices. You could fly to Athens with Aegean and then take easyjet to Gatwick or Luton, or you could plan on ending up in Crete, and take easyjet (or one of the charter airlines) from Crete to Gatwick.
Finally, you could double back to Mykonos and return to Gatwick from there.
I like Athens but the flight connections with Olympic and Aegean are often undesirable to say the least - unless you wait quite a long stopover in Athens. Personally, I would stay overnight in Athens if you go that way.