TUi Airways

[Jerry]

If TOM had bigger aircraft at CWL then they could possibly tap into the flight only market as there is no one else doing those flights.

 

[Selig]

Boy do I hate Bristol Airport. Up at 02:15 to get the 06:30 easyJet flight to Corfu. It poured downed with rain driving there, & the satnav decided to play up & take us on a new route that ended up with us driving through single track farm roads as the quickest route, what a hair raising experience when your rushing to get somewhere on time. Silver Zone car park was packed with people and we had to park way out from the check in office. A full bus closed it's door on us after we'd queued for ages to hand the car keys over & we had to wait for the next one to the airport. Straight upstairs to bag search, as we'd already checked in on line. We were greeted by a massive swarm of people inching their way around the curly wurly barriers in four separate queues. After 45 mins shuffling we had to ask the supervisor if we could jump the queue otherwise we'd miss our flight, luckily he led us to the front. We raced to Gate 16, which must have taken all of ten minutes and was the very last gate, way way out at the end of the airport. Priority boarding had already been done so we lost that & we were at the back of the queue with the final remaining passengers & had to board a bus to take us to the plane. Got absolutely drenched queueing to get up the steps to the plane, and the overhead lockers above our seats were full for our hand luggage. Moral of the story, pay the extra & fly local from Cardiff Airport if you can. Bristol has got way too big & cannot cope with the number of passengers. I do not see me ever flying from there again.

 

[Tinkerman]

Any idea why this is in the Thomson Airways thread ?

That's one of the advantages of using CWL, BRS has expanded so quickly it constantly needs upgrades. The new security area is rammed despite only being finished recently.

People still choose to use BRS though because they still believe it's cheaper, whilst i admit in some cases it is cheaper, other times it isn't and CWL is far more convenient. CWL's challenge for as long as i've known the place has been to get these passengers back using CWL based services, something i thought BE would achieve but i don't really think they are, and neither are VY to an extent. Fact is, BRS has just grown too large in the short haul stakes for CWL to compete economically. For example the larger choice by TOM/TCX from BRS and additional aircraft make the whole cost base that much lower, so they can constantly offer cheaper holidays getting more and more passengers from CWL's catchment area. It's a vicious circle, same can be said regarding short-haul scheduled services.

QR is the game-changer and could boost the reputation of CWL so much that people do sit up and take note and begin using it as a first port of call for their travels again. I've heard some good news from the airport regarding QR in recent days, we'll just to have to wait for it to be announced publicly now.

 

[Jerry]

Sounds like you had a really bad experience. I've not flown from Bristol for a very long time so don't really know the layout but the last time i queued for security for that long was at LAX! Though I think we must remember that time is probably BRSs busiest.If i can I tend to stick with CWL much quicker. Hope you enjoy the rest of your holiday!

 

[Selig]

Hi Tinkerman, my post is on the Thomsons thread as it is a follow up from my earlier post, where I complained about the high price of the Thomsons flight from Cardiff to Corfu, and subsequently took the cheaper option of easyJet from Bristol to Corfu.
Hi Jerry, I'm certainly enjoying the holiday thanks.

 

[Jerry]

Tunisia has been taken off the no go list by the Foreign Office 2 years after 38 people were killed at a resort there.
Considering the tragedy of what happened what do people think is the chances of Tunisia being served from Cardiff Airport again?
http://www.independent.co.uk/travel...attacks-sousse-bardo-museum-a7861056.html?amp

 

[Tinkerman]

Not really sure. It used to rank quite highly at CWL with both TOM and TCX in terms of popularity so i think we'll see it back in some form. However, whether the popularity is still there after those shocking events then it remains to be seen.

 

[Jerry]

Thomson Holidays are now offering Italian Lakes and Mountains holidays from Cardiff Airport. From what I can see they have packages on sale for June 2018 using Flybe's flights to Verona on Wednesday's and Saturday's, on the calendar the dates are between May and September so hopefully they might add more in due course and in the long term if these Italian holidays prove a success then they might add more Italian destinations in the future and maybe other destinations in partnership with Flybe.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Thomson Holidays are now offering Italian Lakes and Mountains holidays from Cardiff Airport. From what I can see they have packages on sale for June 2018 using Flybe's flights to Verona on Wednesday's and Saturday's, on the calendar the dates are between May and September so hopefully they might add more in due course and in the long term if these Italian holidays prove a success then they might add more Italian destinations in the future and maybe other destinations in partnership with Flybe.

A good move. Thomson does like to use scheduled airline for some of its holidays, especially lakes and mountains. I've used them in this way in the recent past.

 

[Jerry]

A good move. Thomson does like to use scheduled airline for some of its holidays, especially lakes and mountains. I've used them in this way in the recent past.

Italy does seem to be a growing market at CWL with Flybe's Verona flights quite popular so that has obviously drawn TOMs attention and they've added there own packages. Hopefully they'll sell well and encourage TOM to then add a full season from 2019 onwards. Fingers crossed as well that this could lead to other destinations in the future not just in Italy that TOM may want to offer from CWL but aren't confident they'll fill a 737.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

For many years (through the 1990s and for several years into this century) there was a summer Verona flight on Wednesdays. I can't remember which tour operator(s) used it.

The carrier for much of the time was the Bournemouth-based European Aviation that from memory used mainly Boeing 737-200s.

 

[Jerry]

It looks like Thomson are uploading the long haul flights for winter 2018/19.
Nothing is bookable at the moment but so far CWL looks like this.
3 flights to Jamaica 4/12/18, 15/1/19 and 19/2/19.
3 flights to Barbados 9/12/18, 3/3/19 and 14/4/19.
Egypt is 1 weekly every Monday November 18 to April 19. Would be great to see Egypt return.
Was Egypt previously flown from Cardiff by a based aircraft? Or non based?
Short haul flights for winter 18/19.
Tenerife 3 weekly Monday Tuesday and Friday
Paphos Wednesdays November 7th 14th and 21st then weekly from 27/2/19
Malaga 1 weekly Sunday
Lanzarote 2 weekly Sunday and Thursday
Gran Canaria 1 weekly Saturday

 

[Jerry]

I've noticed on the Thomson Holidays website that what they provisionally loaded up for winter 2018/2019 has been taken down.

 

[Jerry]

I have no idea why but on the Thomson Holidays site in the drop down under Caribbean Puerto Rico comes up but nothing bookable.

 

[Foxlimayankee]

Which section of the website are you looking at? Caribbean isn't an option on the holidays page, it's the specific islands I can see.

 

[Jerry]

The Thomsons holiday website. Says Summer deals 2018. It's no doubt just a glitch.
View attachment 6179

 

[Jerry]

Thomson are now selling their Italian Lakes and Mountains packages on Flybe's Verona flights in May now as well as June, so hopefully they'll extend them to July, August and September soon enough.

 

[Jerry]

Does TUI own most of the resorts and hotels they sell packages to?

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Does TUI own most of the resorts and hotels they sell packages to?

They certainly seem to own a lot of hotels that they use.

http://www.tuigroup.com/TUIhotels/

 

[Jerry]

On the other forum it's been reported that winter 2018/19 should come out on sale next week. So here's hoping for the return of Egypt and maybe a new route as well!