Just like the others!

“Just like the others!”

Written on: 26/06/2012 by ChrisBeahan (2 reviews written)

Bournemouth to Arrecife and return
My wife and I have booked our last 2 holidays through Thomson and like other reviewers,we always feel that the flight is part of the holiday experience.
Thomson seem to want to ‘milk’ as much from the passengers as is possible, and in this respect are no better than Ryanair or Easyjet.
Our abiding impression is that the cabin crew, whilst smiling outwardly, are anxious to complete their duties and get it over and done with.
Apart from the rip-off prices for food and drink (£2.40 for made-in-the cup tea) it was very unsettling/shocking to see 2 attendants with the duty-free trolley completely blanking a female passenger with a babe in arms wanting to pass by to use a vacant toilet. She was left standing in the aisle and I noticed that the attendant facing the passenger made no attempt at eye-contact, apparently more concerned with taking orders and no doubt, earning her commission! In the end, the lady gave up and walked all the way to the rear of the plane to use one of the toilets there.
We had booked seats with extra legroom which were by the mid-plane emergency exits. One of the passengers close to us in these seats was obviously distressed by flying and appeared unable to comprehend the procedures for passengers sitting in that location. The staff member giving the talk on emergency procedure was aware of this but seemed happy to leave her where she was in spite of her forgetting to put her bag in the overhead locker as instructed.
On the return journey, the same passenger exhibited the same lack of attention to procedure, and in spite of being asked to put her bag overhead, had to be reminded again. This lady appeared to have drunk wine to steady her nerves during the flight and on preparing for landing had to be told to put on her seat belt. She did not comply and I noticed that no staff member saw fit to check again and she remained without her seat belt fastened while the plane was actually landing, in fact she was leaning across her partner looking out of the window.
I can appreciate someone having fears about flying, but it seemed to me that staff were ‘going through the motions’ without actually caring.
If this is how Thomson are prepared to present themselves, then it will be their loss in the end.
I am quite happy to pay a reasonable price for food and drink, but take great exception to being treated as a captive market. Our future holidays will be booked hotel and flights separate and we may just as well use one of the other ‘budget’ airlines as Thomson don’t seem to offer much better.
The final straw was to be asked to fill in a customer satisfaction form which, to my mind, is just a thinly-veiled marketing exercise containing questions about ‘lifestyle’ and obviously aimed at producing leads for other parties wanting to sell phones, gas and electric etc.