Thomas Cook Airlines (powered by Condor)

...to go with some reviews, Thomas Cook Airlines, here's yours.

I will divide the review into UK Pre-Flight, Outbound Flight, Overseas Pre-Flight & Inbound Flight as I there are so many elements I feel I need to mention to get a fair and balanced review.

USEFUL INFO:
Flight No: TCX 334
Dates 6/09/2006 & 14/09/2006
From: Manchester Terminal 2
To: Rhodes
Plane: Boeing 757-200 (235 Seats)
...to enlist the service of Thomas Cook Airlines to obtain our tickets.

At Manchester Airport, Thomas Cook have a dedicated check in area in Terminal 2, on our departure day it was check in desk 2-7 and you apparently could check in for any Thomas Cook flight departing on that day, according to the above desk TV monitor. Each desk is seperated by fabric barriers.

As we had arrived at 1pm for a 7pm flight, this was very ... more

So, I've just returned from Rhodes for my one week of summer sunshine & I am raring to go with some reviews, Thomas Cook Airlines, here's yours.

I will divide the review into UK Pre-Flight, Outbound Flight, Overseas Pre-Flight & Inbound Flight as I there are so many elements I feel I need to mention to get a fair and balanced review.

USEFUL INFO:
Flight No: TCX 334
Dates 6/09/2006 & 14/09/2006
From: Manchester Terminal 2
To: Rhodes
Plane: Boeing 757-200 (235 Seats)

UK PRE-FLIGHT
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Check In
**********
We had received our tickets prior to departure so we did not need to enlist the service of Thomas Cook Airlines to obtain our tickets.

At Manchester Airport, Thomas Cook have a dedicated check in area in Terminal 2, on our departure day it was check in desk 2-7 and you apparently could check in for any Thomas Cook flight departing on that day, according to the above desk TV monitor. Each desk is seperated by fabric barriers.

As we had arrived at 1pm for a 7pm flight, this was very handy. Around the queuing area, there were several Thomas Cook reps milling about helping customers, checking tickets etc.

Andrew decided to join a queue and was a accosted by a rather orange lady demanding to see his tickets. We duly handed over our Club 18-30 booklet to the lady, who advised us we couldn't check in yet. I asked why the monitors advised 'Check In, All Flights' we were told that was an error and we could come back at 3pm to start checking in. So that was quite frustrating, and we did stand our ground with the rep, saying 'it says all flights, we'd like to check in'. Another, older couple then spoke to our rep saying could they check in for the Rhodes flight and she told them to join the line! Then, when asked why we couldn't check in but another couple could, she walked off in a huff! So we queued up at desk 4.

The queue had approximately 4 groups in front of us and it took 13 minutes for us to reach the check in desk, which we felt was fine, considering the heightened security at the current time.

Upon reaching the desk, we were greeted, very cheerful by a male Thomas Cook rep who asked us for our tickets and passports for the group and how many bags we were checking in today. He proceeded to check our tickets, passports and even asked us again where we were flying to and our names and dates of birth. Once he was satisfied by that, he asked us the normal, have you packed your on bags questions, once that was completed for both suitcases, he then asked to inspect my handbag, which was our only hand luggage item, when he was satisfied I wasn't carrying anything untoward, he tagged my handbag and returned it to me.

The rep then gave us our boarding pass, told us our expected boarding time, boarding gate and seat numbers and wished us a happy holiday.

The experience here was fair, only slightly marred by the lady who we felt was slightly against Club 18-30 but the check in chap was pleasant and polite. The only downside is that no-one we could see was wearing a name badge, which is frustrating if we had wanted to complain about the first rep.

Overall Rating 7/10

Boarding
**********
Our flight was departing at 7pm and we were told to arrive at the stated gate for between 6pm and 6.15pm to ensure a prompt departure. Most of the flight had obviously heeded to this advice as by 6.10pm, the departure lounge was quite full but there was no staff about. At 6.20, 2 girls arrived and asked for seat rows 15-30 to present for boarding, they were very swift at boarding us, we were in seat row 19 and one of the first to board the aircraft, so I am not able to say if boarding beyond that was eventful or not.

We arrived at the plane via a gantry and we were greet by a member of the cabin crew ho asked us our seats and pointed, vaguely to the back of the plane whilst talking to another member of the crew.

Children were given a colouring pack but adults got nowt, on previous charter flights, I have been given a newspaper but on this company, this isn't the case.

The plane was very cramped, I am 5'2" and I really struggled with the room on board, despite that though, the seats were fairly comfortable, in good condition and the cabin was clean in all the areas I could see. The tray tables in our row were all working and were clean.

The seat backs contained a safety card, entertainment and snack information a magazine giving various information from what aircraft the fleet uses to how much duty free allowance you are allowed and of course the sick bag too which was now renamed, according to the bag, a 'Cabin Refuse' bag.

There were on-board TV screens for watching the in-flight film every few rows. Our particular row had a TV but it was very hard to see clearly because of the position of it and even with the window blind down, it remained hard to see, out safety announcements were shown on these TV screen whilst the plane was taxi-ing and the cabin crew showed us the exits.

OUTBOUND FLIGHT
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Flight time: 3hrs 58 minutes.

After we had taken off and finished ascending, we were told that for the in-flight entertainment and film 'X-Men 3', we would need to buy headphones, in fact, there was no 'Welcome Aboard', it was straight down to how much money they could make off you! The headphones cost £2.75 each. We decided to buy one pair and have a headphone each but the cabin crew didn't like that, they thought we should buy a pair each, in the end I said I wasn't actually planning to watch the film and they seemed happy with that, but it was kind of bizarre that we couldn't just buy one set without argument! You plug your headphones into your arm rest where there is an LCD panel to control channels and volume.

After grappling with the headphones, we were offered on board drinks, they have NO normal, full fat Pepsi on board at all, so if, like me, Pepsi is one of your favourite drinks, you'll be disappointed, there isn't even a Coca-Cola substitute!. So, soft drinks were relegated to juices on our flight because of 'stock issues', no alcohol was served on this flight, again, this was attributed to 'stock' levels. The soft drinks cot 80p for a mini can and £1.80 for a hot drink. Snack deals were available, you could have a tub of Pringles, Mars bar and hot drink for £3. Snacks available were:
Pringles £1.35,
Mars Bars £1
Pepperami £1
Mini Cheddars 80p
We had 2 drinks run throughout the flight, one about 20 minute after departure and a second prior to the in-flight meal. The serving crew were quite friendly and offered snacks without being asked, also offered tap water by the glass to anyone who wasn't purchasing the a drink from the trolley, which I thought was an excellent initiative in the current high profile of DVT due to flying.

The in-flight entrainment was fair, the film was 'X-Men 3' followed by 'The Simpsons' Catherine Tate' & Everybody Hates Chris'. Radio entertainment consisted of a variety of classical music, jazz, chillout, 70's and 80's & current pop, it was OK, the selection for each station as limited to about 25 minutes of music which was then repeated, though there was no chat on any of the stations.

Our next encounter on the flight involved the crew selling scratch cards that aid the Variety Club. These cost £1 and beware, if you don't buy them, they crew will make you feel very guilty, which isn't particularly fair, we tried to buy just one but they tried the guilt trip on us, so we bought 2 and fair enough we didn't win £1 each, but the hard sell was just not needed and I don't feel it was entirely appropriate. You can only redeem wininngs up to £30 onboard and over £30 is paid in Thomas Cook vouchers.

Food was served about 2 hours into the flight and we had a meal of 2 pork sausages, mash potatoes, bread roll and chocolate brownie. The meal was served not on a tray but in a cardboard box and it feel a bit like a high class McDonald's rather than an in-flight meal. Tea and coffee were served in cardboard cups and were served about 10 minutes following the meal. Some passengers got 2 cups of drink and some only got one, we only got one each and there didn't appear to be any reason why some people got two cups and why some people only got one, as a coffee fan, I would have liked two cups! The food standard was OK, the sausages were tasty but the mash and gravy was dry and the brownies again was very dry.

It took quite a while for the crew to clear up the cabin after the meal and as a result, we missed the in flight shopping as we had started our descent into Rhodes. This was disappointing again but not a great priority for us.

The crew then came back around the aircraft ensuring it was all safe for landing and ensuring all passengers were wearing their seatbelts.

After we had landed in Rhodes the cabin manager came on the tannoy and proceeded to thank us for travelling, directed us to the internet to book more seats in future and gave us the local time. We got the impression that the gent was just going through his motions and that he really wasn't wishing us a pleasant stay in Rhodes, he sounded so grumpy to have had to work for 3 and a bit hours and end up on a Greek island. There was no farewell from the crew as we left the aircraft, they all huddled at the front end of the plane and were having a chat, oh well, we just wanted to get off anyway!

Overall, I'd give that portion of my experience a 5/10.

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OVERSEA'S PRE-FLIGHT
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We arrived at Rhodos International Airport via our transfer bus and guided to our check in desk by our rep. As it was beyond midnight, there were 2 check in desks open, both with Greek ladies in Thomas Cook uniform checking passengers in. The queue was subject to Thomas Cook reps shoving people about, asking you to move where there was no room but there you go.

When we got to the front, the lady checking us in screamed 'Passports!, Luggage!' at us, we asked for a window seat and she said 'No available', we pre-booked so showed her on the tickets and she looked at us and said 'See what I do'. After taking our luggage and tagging it, she gave us our boarding passes but didn't return our tickets. Andy asked for them back and she said 'Gone', then as we walked away, she shouted 'Your tickets', so we felt we'd caught the wrong side of her that night.

After clearing passport control, the TV screens directed us to gate 9 where we were boarded very promptly.

The aircraft taking us back was much nicer than the one we had come out on, leather seats for example and a friendly staff as we boarded.

All passengers boarded quickly and as a result we took off 25 minutes earlier than scheduled.

INBOUND FLIGHT
********************
Safety information was identical to the inbound flight, so I won't repeat the information I have given you already.

The flight took a similar pattern although headphones weren't sold public ally but we did see the crew going around the cabin taking headsets to passengers. Our entertainment was the film 'Just My Luck', I feel asleep for the TV section so I can't tell you what it was other than I know 'Top Gear' was on! Radio was the same as outbound.

25 minutes in and our first drinks were sold, we decided we didn't want anything but the crew pestered us about DVT and getting dehydrated so eventually we relented and bought 2 orange juices. Even after we had lined the on-board bar with silver, they STILL pestered us to buy snacks, I really did feel like screaming at them 'It's 2am, I don't want a Pepperami!' but there was a lot of people asleep around us, so I didn't.

After the drinks run, we didn't see the crew at all until the meal was served, not sure if this was normal on one of their night flights or whether their social lives were more important. They drew the curtain at the front of the cabin and stayed there til meal serving time!!

Our meal was served and the entire crew looked like we had disturbed them from their social lives when they were serving. We were asked, rather huffily, 'Ave your ordered meals?', we replied yes and the lady looked at us and said 'you sure?' before giving us our breakfast meal. The meal consisted of a sausage, an egg that looked like it had never seen a chicken in it's life and some soggy things that claimed to be potatoes plus a marmalade muffin. Overall this was pretty grim and tasteless. Coffee and tea were served in the same manner as before, some passengers got 2 cups, some only one, again we were in the camp of the one cup.

An announcement was made that on-board shopping was available this time and the crew came around but were not pushy at all about the shopping which was a blessed relief to be fair after all the hard sell.

About 30 minutes before landing the crew appeared again and ere asking for Euro coins for charity, we didn't have any left, we'd used it for drinks at the airport but yet again, we were made to feel really really guilty, it wasn't even as if I had notes we could give, only £50 travellers cheques. This was such a horrible tactic to use, especially in the early hours of the morning, the crew member just said 'Well if you can't help disabled children, who will you help?', it wasn't ever a case of we wouldn't, we just couldn't.

So 45 minutes ahead of schedule we landed in a rainy Manchester, again being grumpily thanked for travelling Thomas Cook Airlines and advising us to go on-line and book seats again. No pleasantries for a safe onward journey or anything either.

The doors opened, the crew stood by the doors but no 'bye' or 'Thank You' was mentioned even to the passengers who spoke to them. After everything, we were glad to disembark!

Overall 4/10

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My Opinion
~*~*~*~*~*
Overall, these were not bad flights, they were on time, even early and the planes were clean and tidy.

What let Thomas Cook down tremendously was the attitude of the on-board crew, who seemed to think if you were not conforming to what they wanted, that you were some kind of deviant that need to be berated into submission.

The whole hard sell on EVERYTHING was just not needed, I can decide if I am thirsty or hungry or if I want to buy something, I don't need to be pushed into it, it just serves to push people in the other direction, I want an easy life, I want to start and finish my holidays on pleasantries and an easy life, not a school atmosphere.

Even the staff on the pre-flight both in the UK and Rhodes suffered from poor customer service attitudes and I do feel strongly that some of the staff may need to undergo further training in these fields.

I certainly don't think I would choose to fly 'Thomas Cook' again if I had the choice, it wasn't that it was awful, it really wasn't, it just needs improvements that will take time to implement, like anything and probably before that happens, they'll be bought out by somebody and everything ill stay the same!

OK if you don't expect too much from your flight and certainly comfortable, just don't expect too much in the way of customer service and please, ensure you have some spare change for your return flight!!
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MY OVERALL RATING 5/10, as good as it was, it was still half poor and needing improvement.
 

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