Calis Beach and Fethiye Turkey Discussion Forum
Flights, Airlines and Airports => Flights to Dalaman and Turkey, Airlines and Airports => Topic started by: stoop on September 16, 2012, 11:37:21 AM
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We arrived at Dalaman for our 2am flight to Manchester about 2hours 15 before take off time. Checked the board and directed to desks 41-44. I noticed a second flight to Manchester at the same take off time but with no desks open.
Got to the check-in and we were handed a printed sheet saying that due to staffing problems our plane was delayed and the estimated take off was now 2-50am.
Went through passport control and the take off had now gone to 03-25am. Still to check-in open for the 2am flight - then suddenly it was gate open and they were boarding.
We eventually took off at 4am and when I got back some friends of ours had already posted on FB that they had arrived at Manchester on the other flight some 2 hours earlier than we did. When I asked them about that flight they said that those who arrived early at the airport were put on the delayed flight and those who arrived late were put on the earlier flight!
It seems our original plane must have been a bigger one and had had technical problems - so they had to split the flight to two planes. But why on earth did those who arrived early get penalised for doing so?
I will be contacting Monarch tomorrow to express my disappointment in this and ask for an explanation.
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I never noticed that other 02:00 flight on the board Stuart. I'll ask our Joanne for the proper explanation which, more than likely, will not be what Monarch tell you.
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I can't remember the exact code but it started ZB7. It was directly under our flight on the board and had the same take off time but no desk to go to.
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I think it was zb759 and if so that would be the Gatwick plane (zb758) that was not due to return until this afternoon.
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Jo has not been in work yet but knows that the 02:00 Saturday flight is normally the A300 which is a wide bodied 300+ seater aircraft.
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Which suggests they needed two planes as ours was full if you remember. As I said - our fiends arrived late and said that all those at the back of the queue got put on the earlier flight. Defies logic but why am I not surprised?
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Might it be because your luggage had already been taken through and designated for the original plane? Once it's gone through it's a he'll of a job to get it back. Those at end of queue would be easier to switch flight? Just a thought.
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Yes but both flights were listed on the board so surely it would have made more sense to put the early arrivals on the earlier plane? The earlier plane was already on the ground but the later one still in the air and didn't arrive until much later.
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This is totally confusing despite what our Jo said about the A300. I pre-booked my seats for the return flight and the interior seat plan that I booked on was for the A321 as on the way out.
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Me too Ken. I've written to complain and ask for an explanation. The hand out letter said it was staffing problems but the pilot mentioned technical problems as well. Monarch seem to have quite a few of both lately according to the reviews I've seen recently.
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I e mailed them via the link that they showed on the delay letter that we were given and received a mail this morning to say that they are reimbursing my £11.98 prebooking fee. With it was an apology but no explanation.
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Will do that today. Better than nothing I guess. Did you book extra legroom?
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Will do that today. Better than nothing I guess. Did you book extra legroom?
No just a window and adjacent seat a few rows in front of the wings.
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We were also on the delayed flight.We had checked in on-line and went through the check-in procedure in the quickest time ever at Dalaman only to be on the later flight.Oh well, you can't win em all! Hubby has also e-mailed them so we may get some money back.
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Annoying thing is the early flight was already in and they could easily have put our cases on and let us board.
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Well I eventually got a reply - after chasing them up again as they didn't keep tHeir promise of a reply within 28 days! Apology. Explanation? No refund of my pre-booked seating - so another email sent off:
Dear Mr Groom,
Thank you for your email regarding your flight with Monarch.
I am sorry for the delay you experienced and the obvious inconvenience this caused.
We do of course try to avoid delaying our passengers but, as with all airlines, problems do occur from time to time and safety is always our number one priority. However, I agree that it is the way we manage these delays that affects the passengers’ experience. You are correct in that we were experiencing staff shortages, which was due to unprecedented levels of sickness.
I do realise how important it is to keep people informed when there are changes to the flight schedule. Our agents do their very best to tell passengers as much as possible about the delay and I am sorry if the service you received on this occasion was below your expectations. We take full responsibility for our service provider not delivering the standard of care that our passengers deserve. This shortfall in service has been addressed in order to determine why this occurred and to mitigate the risk of this happening in the future.
Kind regards
Kathleen. Hannon
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We also had to chase them because they didn't reply to the 28 day deadline & we got £11.98 refunded on the 19th October. I think they hope you will have forgotten after a month (must admit I had until hubby remembered)
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Another email gone off!
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If a passenger inconveniences an airline then the passenger is penalised.
For example, name changes, not checking in on time, cabin baggage too big or too heavy and cancellation has a fee attached.
You might say that this is fair enough because rules is rules.
On the other hand, if an airline inconveniences a passenger then similar penalties are not applied.
For example, flight times rescheduled by 11hours 59 minutes are not considered as major and therefore no compensation.
In this Monarch instance, I read that money for a service not given will be refunded but that should be an automatic response from the airline and not one which has to be applied for with the passenger having to be further inconvenienced.
Airlines get away with treating us like mugs and we keep giving them our custom .... me included, unfortunately.
Rant over.
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we had a similar thing happen on our early morning Saturday Monarch flight, we arrived to check in and saw people were being handed a letter as they checked in, once it was our turn to check in we were told our flight number had now changed handed the letter which said to be sure to watch the monitors regularly as the two Monarch flights would be taking off at the same time and could still be subject to change.Wrong!! The original flight number that we would have been on was at the gate and I think it took off about 10 mins earlier then scheduled, the new flight with the number change was not at the gate and I just thought oh no it is going to be hours sitting here, I was so tired and just wanted to get my seat on the plane and have a sleep. Fortunately a plane did rock up quite soon and I think the delay was only around 40 to 50m minutes, I was suprised to hear the captain announce it would be a 4 hour 35 minute flight I know it is longer back but never heard of a flight from Dalaman to Gatwick taking that long :(
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RESULT!
I kept chipping away and we have not only received the booking fee for both directions but also an apology and admission that we SHOULD have been put on the earlier flight but staffing problems were to blame.
I replied with thanks and that we had already booked for next year with Monarch and now find we also have a free full bottle of Champs :)
Well done Monarch :)
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there was an feature on a UK tv programme this week about airline passenger rights and when compensation is liable to be paid by the airline. When we were delayed in October Monarch sent us an e-mail which they said we could use if we wanted to make a claim on our travel insurance!!
The web page is www.caa.co.uk and then click on passengers to get info - very interesting.
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Seems we were about 1 hour short of a compensation claim of £500+.
EU rules means you can claim for delays of 3 hrs or more as long as its the airlines fault (staffing/ breakdown but not weather).
You also need to be flying from or landing in an EU airport on a plane belonging to a company registered in the EU.
Worth remembering and MSExpert has letter templates.