Airline Compensation Claims

An employee of Gloucester Council has become the one of the first people to be impacted upon by the High Court decision to stay all further claims against airlines who fail to pay flight delay compensation. The council employee, Tim Malpas, has continually contacted Thomas Cook since December 2008 in order to gain compensation for a delay of 28 hours at the start of his holiday trip to Las Vegas with his wife. His claim was about to be taken to court until the High Court ruling was put in place; this has resulted in Thomas Cook getting away with not paying any compensation to Tim Malpas. Three hundred people were on the flight TCX033K which was delayed due to a technical fault with the planes spoiler, the wing flap which is used as an air brake on landing. This first technical fault led to a five hour delay taking off from Manchester. People have spoken out at how they were forced to sleep on the floor and were not provided with water, food or water. Once the plane began to approach its destination it had to be diverted to an airport in California due to bad weather. The diverted airport was 60 miles away from Los Angeles and 300 miles away from Las Vegas. Andy, who is diabetic, was only able to take one dose of insulin on the plane with him. By the time he arrived in California he could not have his insulin as it was still in the plane hold, this left him being very disrupted and left him in a uncomfortable state. Thomas Cook have described the event as unfortunate.