Thomson Airways

Manchester - Cancun January 15th 2013. Flight approx 40 minutes late departing as had to de-frost wings. Newspapers available for everyone comfortable flight leg room adequate. Flight crew were attentive and informative. Meal quite nice including snack before landing. Ran out of red wine fairly quickly so many passengers would have been disappointed. Upgraded inflight entertainment and watched a couple of films to pass the time. Journey back on the 29th was a night flight similar to the day flight but the snack before landing was not as fresh. Pillow and blankets supplied.

Flew Manchester to Tenerife return. How Thomson flights have gone down. Really old plane with very cramped seats and no leg room really uncomfortable for a 4.5 hour flight. Did not realise the film and music had been removed. When asked the air stewardess said it had been removed as most people had IPads. How wrong no one had one and everyone was moaning about the lack of entertainment. Drink prices high. Could not believe how the standard of the plane and the service you received had gone down since I last flew Thomson. Would look for another airline to fly with next time.

La Palma to Manchester. Vast improvement since the new 738's have replaced the old ex Air 2000 A320's. Well worth paying for the exit seats on this 4 hour trip. Seats quite supportive and like the Dreamliner style interior and lighting. Food and drink quite tasty and not badly priced. Not sure if I'd fancy this product on a 9h+ slog to Orlando Mexico or the Far East but for the Canaries or less it's pretty good value.

Outward flight from LGW to FUE on a nearly new Boeing 737-800 in extra legroom seats (row 15). Seat pitch and width good crew efficient and worked hard. Prompt departure and regular announcements from the captain. Shame about the shambles at check in - whether or not you have to pay extra for being 0.2kg over the luggage limit largely depends on who checks you in. The rude staff member we encountered took pleasure in making us open and re-arrange our bags on the terminal floor. Not the best start to a holiday especially when people with much larger and heavier bags than us. Food okay but nothing special also £2.50 for a small bag of chips is excessive. Return was on a Boeing 757-200 again in extra legroom seats (row 32). No problem at check in this time. Again good legroom and seat width and a prompt departure. The only problem with these seats is that they are by the toilets and therefore the aisle area can get busy. The crew again worked hard but two particular female attendants were rude and snappy.

Flew from Birmingham to Lanzarote on 10/01/13. Plane was one of the oldest in the fleet - a 757. We had plenty of leg room flight was very good cabin crew were good. Only downside was on a 4 hour flight there was no entertainment onboard. We had the same plane on the return.

Travelled back from Cuba to Gatwick on a 9 hour night flight with the toilet to my left within 2 hours of the flight I could no longer take the smell. I complained to the cabin manager who was abrupt very unhelpful and told me I would have to put up with it. My young daughter was sat next to the toilet on the other side and moaned about the smell all night. Never again with Thomson.

Birmingham-Salzburg December 2012. For what is only a 2-hour flight you'd pretty much expect to get by with anything. Wrong. Despite moving our flight time forward by 4 hours so it was a 4am check-in we arrived at 3.50. After the usual ski-queue wait we checked our bags only to be told that only 2 ski bags (instead of the 4 we booked) were on their system. We showed them the tickets and the invoice which clearly stated 4 ski carriage paid for but they said they could not take the other 2. The supervisor was called and clearly knew no better - checked the system and confirmed only 2 bags were showing. Basically we either pay £90 for the other bags to be put on the flight or leave them! No help to get through security and arrived at the gate to be told the gate was closed. After reasoning with the gate staff they got a bus and got us to the plane. The whole lack of awareness appreciation or any semblance of customer service means unless there is no other option we'll look elsewhere for future flights.

GLA-LPA-GLA. Outbound 15 Dec and inbound 22 Dec. Outbound B757-200 aircraft appeared to be ex-First Choice. Flight operated to schedule and having paid for 'Extra Leg room seats' the journey was fairly comfortable. I was seated in row 12 a middle seat next to a main door. The Cabin Crew fitted a draft excluder to the door for the en-route portion of the flight. Inbound again on a B757-200 with 'Extra Legroom seats' I was seated in row 32 with a window seat next to the Emergency Exit. Return journey could be described as fair only as there was a cold draft of air coming through the Emergency Exit. Both outbound and inbound the GLA based Cabin Crew were kept very busy and were friendly. The Captain's inflight information was good. Inbound he advised that the flight was operating late mainly due head winds on the earlier sector. This delay was almost 'made up' en-route - the time in the air from LPA to GLA being only 4 hours not bad at all! Catering arrangements expensive for what's provided. To conclude as stated previously in an earlier post 6 December 2012 I would not travel with this airline if I had to use standard seats. The 'Extra Legroom' option is OK however if booked to travel on a B757-200 I would avoid an extra legroom window seat due to continuous cold drafts!

I flew to Taba in Egypt in Sep 2012. The flight was the worst flight I have had no entertainment due to the fact Thomson have now stopped this along with the meals. I ordered food from the list when it came you could not eat it due to it being so hard - this was only a toasted cheese sandwich. People were restless due to the fact you sat there for over 5 hours doing nothing due. Staff were over worked. If you do fly with them take your own food and inflight entertainment.

Manchester - Cancun return in Dec. Had never flown Thomson before and after this experience will never want to fly with them again. Flight times: 2hr delay on outbound flight plus the pilot had to take us via a longer route to avoid turbulence - meant we arrived 2.5 hours late into Cancun! Flight back was better with only a 40min late arrival. Food: Cooked food poor and on the inbound flight they had sold out of most snacks and wine by the time they got to our seat - no apology. No free water which is deplorable on a 13hr flight (outbound flight) and a 9hr flight (inbound). Staff service: Could hear flight attendants talking loudly and swearing just before take off and landing (on both flights). Toilets: 2 of the 4 toilets in economy were out of order by the end of the first flight and the part of the plane we were in smelled terrible. Seats: OK. Despite the fact we checked in 2hrs early we weren't able to sit together on the outbound flight but got seats together on the inbound flight as we arrived 3hrs early! Had decent leg room and seat was big enough Entertainment: TV screen quality poor. Films/TV shows on a loop unless you want to pay extra. A number of IFE screens had to be reset (including mine) - which isn't an unexpected thing but the FA was really annoyed when I told him! Kids running around and screaming. Parents were useless and FAs did nothing to help the situation. Overall it was a rather horrific start and end to an otherwise brilliant holiday.