Thomas Cook

[TheLocalYokel]

Rumours have been circulating in recent times that Thomas Cook is seriously considering closing its Cardiff Airport base, currently a single A320 operation.

I know that a few months ago the company announced a multi-million pounds savings strategy but it would be eyebrow-raising given that CWL usually supports very well the type of sunshine routes that Thomas Cook typically flies from there, and there aren't many other competitors from the airport.

If the company did pull its based aircraft - no suggestion it would be this summer - it might still serve the airport from other bases of course.

Nevertheless, this is something the airport could do without as it struggles to arrest the continually falling passenger numbers and then begin a climb back.

 

[Aviador]

I would think Paphos will be a huge success from Cardiff through the winter. Aspro's in-house airline Inter European will probably have been the last operator to operate the route from Cardiff airport during the winter months back in the 90's. Aspro and Inter European did in fact become part of Airtours which is of course now part of Thomas Cook since all the mergers...

 

[TheLocalYokel]

TFS and DLM now clash on a Friday afternoon. Any ideas?

It seems that Onur may be operating the Dalaman flight on Fridays for Thomas Cook.

 

[hungerdunger]

Hello - Newbie here. I hope this is the right thread for my query.

I was looking at the Flythomascook website for Thomas Cook flights from Cardiff to Fuerteventura in February 2013, and couldn't find any. I then tried the "All Canaries airports" option and again came up with no results. Making the same query using Bristol Airport returned lots of results.

Does this imply that Thomas Cook are ceasing these flights at the end of the season next November or is it possible that they will appear at a later date? I make the trip twice a year and the flights are nearly always full, so I would like to think they'll be continuing.

 

[tleeds]

Welcome to Forums4Airports 'HungerDunger'.

Many airlines finalise their Winter timetables during the Summer season, so it is very likely that you will be able to book flights soon, it's just that Thomas Cook haven't completed their final timetable and so you can't book flights yet.
You should be able to book your flights within the next few months I would've thought... that is, if Thomas Cook remain at Cardiff, amid rumours that they could possibly be closing down their base!

Welcome again, and if you have any queries, just let one of the members know.

Regards.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Someone asked a similar question about Thomas Cook's Cardiff-Fuerteventura in another forum and there was no definitive answer.

You may be aware that Thomas Cook only re-commenced flights (to all destinations) from CWL last week after taking a break for much of the previous three months.

The Canaries certainly appear popular as two Thomas Cook flights inbound from Tenerife to Cardiff are shown for today but of course it's half-term week.

The best answer at the moment is that only Thomas Cook will know the situation and probably even they haven't finalised their complete programme for next winter, and not only from CWL.

You might like to try this link

https://thomascook.zendesk.com/forums

There is a facility for a live web chat with them (see top right hand corner of page) which might answer your question.

If you do get an answer from them I would be interested to hear it.

 

[hungerdunger]

Thanks for your replies and the information.

I appreciate next February is quite a long way ahead - it's just that the accommodation I normally stay in gets booked a long way in advance, so if I knew Thomas Cook weren't planning flights from Cardiff I could book from Bristol.

I'll have a look at the link you gave me, TLY, and will let you know if I get anything definite from them

 

[hungerdunger]

UPDATE: TLY - I forgot about your link for the Thomas Cook Zendesk (above) but I've asked the question again about flights to Fuerteventura next February here: http://bit.ly/HksWXi.

It appears that Thomas Cook won't be doing any flights there from Cardiff, and when I did a search on flythomascook.com I couldn't find results for any Canary Island destinations from Cardiff.

Hopefully someone will prove me wrong, but if they have dropped these destinations, or have pulled out of Cardiff altogether, is this another nail in the coffin?

 

[TheLocalYokel]

UPDATE: TLY - I forgot about your link for the Thomas Cook Zendesk (above) but I've asked the question again about flights to Fuerteventura next February here: http://bit.ly/HksWXi.

It appears that Thomas Cook won't be doing any flights there from Cardiff, and when I did a search on flythomascook.com I couldn't find results for any Canary Island destinations from Cardiff.

Hopefully someone will prove me wrong, but if they have dropped these destinations, or have pulled out of Cardiff altogether, is this another nail in the coffin?

Hello again hungerdunger.

I've tried booking 'All Canaries' on the 'flythomascook' website towards the end of next February and all that appears is Fuerteventura for Bristol, Birmingham and even Gatwick - but nothing for Cardiff as you mention. These were the airports I checked.

I don't know whether this means that Fuerteventura will be the only TCX Canary destination next February from anywhere and even then not from all UK airports it's served in the past.

May be part of the company's attempts to put its business back in order after its widely reported problems. Summer 2012 capacity has been cut significantly so it will no surprise if next winter follows the same pattern.

In recent years the lowcost airlines have entered the Canary market in a big way with easyJet and Ryanair flying to all Canary Islands between them from Bristol throughout the year. This seems to have had an effect on TOM that doesn't appear to be flying to Fuerteventura from Bristol next winter as it has done for many winters.

Certainly not heard that TCX is pulling out of CWL altogether.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Rhodes - Wednesday 25 May 2016

There are some posts in the BRS Thomas Cook thread concerning CWL TCX passengers for Rhodes being bussed to BRS and flown from there. It seems the based TCX presence at CWL, a SmartLynx A320, went tech.

Originally it was believed on another forum that the CWL passengers were put on the BRS A321 flight, raising questions about the loads at both airports. In fact, the BRS flight went to Rhodes as normal with an additional aircraft being positioned into BRS from MAN to accommodate the CWL pax.

The obvious point is why wasn't the aircraft flown to CWL to operate from there? Does anyone know why that didn't happen?

Incidentally, the return flight was amalgamated operating RHO-CWL-BRS but as it was the first BRS outbound of the season there wouldn't be likely to be many passengers on the return leg.

 

[Jerry]

Thomas Cook Summer 2017
Bourgas 1x weekly
Ibiza 1x weekly
Majorca 3x weekly
Menorca 1x weekly
Lanzarote 1x weekly
Tenerife 2x weekly
Larnaca 1x weekly
Orlando 25th March 24th May
Rhodes 1x weekly
Zante 2x weekly
Reus 1x weekly
Dalaman 1x weekly

Same as this year by the looks of it. Was hoping for something new for S17. Guessing as well that'll it'll be a Smart Lynx A320 again.

 

[Aviador]

You can get about 15 or 16 flights a week out of the one aircraft so without a significant commitment in a second aircraft base it would take W leg flights from other bases to increase the offering from the airport.
#thomascookcardiff

 

[Jerry]

You can get about 15 or 16 flights a week out of the one aircraft so without a significant commitment in a second aircraft base it would take W leg flights from other bases to increase the offering from the airport.
#thomascookcardiff

I suppose looking from Thomas Cooks point of view if people want something different then they will travel to BRS. Though i do wonder if they have ever considered basing another aircraft and increasing what they offer.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Looking at the CWL programme and having looked at the BRS TOM and TCX programmes yesterday how times have changed in terms of flight times and utilisation. 20 years ago when these airports were primarily charter fields the aircraft were often used on three rotations per 24 hours with late evening departures - say 2030-2230 common.

It was not unusual to see overnight charter flights coming in between 0400 and 0800, especially at weekends. That is now a thing of the past and the aircraft mainly do just two rotations per 24 hours. Given that it is said that aircraft only earn money when flying I wonder if it's the case that it would be false economy to fly a lot overnight now as perhaps attitudes of passengers to this have changed. I'm talking about holiday flights.

To respond to Jerry's point, Thomas Cook has Airtours (later MyTravel) as one of its ancestors and 20-25 years ago Airtours had a bigger presence at CWL than at BRS as did Thomson with Britannia at one point.

 

[Jerry]

Looking at the CWL programme and having looked at the BRS TOM and TCX programmes yesterday how times have changed in terms of flight times and utilisation. 20 years ago when these airports were primarily charter fields the aircraft were often used on three rotations per 24 hours with late evening departures - say 2030-2230 common.

It was not unusual to see overnight charter flights coming in between 0400 and 0800, especially at weekends. That is now a thing of the past and the aircraft mainly do just two rotations per 24 hours. Given that it is said that aircraft only earn money when flying I wonder if it's the case that it would be false economy to fly a lot overnight now as perhaps attitudes of passengers to this have changed. I'm talking about holiday flights.

To respond to Jerry's point, Thomas Cook has Airtours (later MyTravel) as one of its ancestors and 20-25 years ago Airtours had a bigger presence at CWL than at BRS as did Thomson with Britannia at one point.

I would have thought that Turkey and the Canary Islands would have been prime targets for overnight flights but maybe the demand for early morning and late night flights is not there any more. I know from personal experience i tend to not like late arrivals or really early departures.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Neither do I but I wondered if it was more of an age thing.

 

[Jerry]

CWL and BRS had a bit of a swap around this morning! The CWL based Smart Lynx A320 YL-LCK hopped over to BRS and did BRS-FUE-CWL and the BRS based Thomas Cook A321 G-TCDE hopped over to CWL and has done CWL-FUE-BRS. Only can guess that the CWL flight to FUE was overbooked for a A320. Both aircraft are home now!

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Bit confused here (nothing new there) because FR 24 shows G-TCDE departing BRS at 0720 (sched dep time 0715) as MT7044 (usual BRS flight number) and arriving FUE 1054 (sched arrival time 1110). It then leaves FUE at 1204 (sched dep time 1215) for CWL as MT7027 (CWL flight number but is diverted to BRS with no arrival time shown).

FR shows YL-LCK departing CWL at 0719 (sched dep time 0715) as MT7026 (usual CWL flight number) and arriving FUE 1050 (sched arrival time 1115). It then leaves FUE at 1208 (sched dep time 1210) for BRS as MT7045 (BRS flight number but is diverted to CWL with no arrival time shown).

On the face of it G-TCDE has picked up all the returning CWL passengers and dumped them at BRS, and YL-LCL has picked up all the returning BRS passengers and dumped them at CWL.

I can't think that FR24 has got that right but it certainly seems to be saying that the correct aircraft worked the outbounds but switched for the inbounds from FUE.

Isn't the CWL-FUE route a limited period one (three weeks) that began a week ago? Maybe such a switch was always planned. FR aircraft history for the two machines involved doesn't go back quite far enough to see what they did last Saturday (1 October).

 

[Jerry]

Bit confused here (nothing new there) because FR 24 shows G-TCDE departing BRS at 0720 (sched dep time 0715) as MT7044 (usual BRS flight number) and arriving FUE 1054 (sched arrival time 1110). It then leaves FUE at 1204 (sched dep time 1215) for CWL as MT7027 (CWL flight number but is diverted to BRS with no arrival time shown).

Yeah it was confusing! I do wonder if the A320 actually returned with the CWL passengers but FR24 just had it down as returning to BRS. Yes FUE doesn't seem to get much of a run at CWL i would've thought that it could be a once a week package even if it was a charter. Think TOM are doing it for a few weeks in January.

 

[Jerry]

I was having a look at Thomas Cooks CWL offering for next year and found some interesting connections via the Orlando flight on the 25th May with the return on the 7th June. Mexico City, Aguadilla, Ponce and San Juan (the last 3 are in Puerto Rico). The Orlando flight is by Air Tanker while the connections are with JetBlue, unfortunately no Cancun next year.