Quote Originally Posted by mickd1961 View Post
I turned up at Menorca airport with my wife and three youngish kids about 20 years ago and as is my luck I picked the slowest of the three check in desks and got there last.

Handed over our 5 tickets and the staff started talking in Spanish instead of the fluent English used up to that point.

I was then informed there was only 4 seats left so either I stayed behind or we all did but we had no money left and there was no timescales as to what day we’d next get a flight!

We’d booked the holiday through Thompson I think it was many months before so it seemed inconceivable that we were a seat short.

The Thompson rep had disappeared on the coach back to the resort and I started to panic and was kicking off at the desk and then running around trying to find help.

I was then approached by gun wielding police and was told I’d be arrested if I didn’t shut up.

At that point a couple of fantastic young reps from another company intervened and took over at the check in on our behalf.

The reason for the missing seat?

A member of Thompson’s staff wanted to get back to the U.K. quickly and had had a ticket printed manually for them at the desk����

This shows how much contempt airlines have for their customers!

In the end these reps persuaded the necessary people at the airline to put the staff member in the spare cockpit seat with the pilots ( it was pre 911 )

This messing around delayed take off so we as a family we’re treated like leper’s once we finally boarded as everyone blamed us for the late set off.

A horrible and unnecessary experience due to selfishness and the wilful neglect of a family of 5 people.

I never flew with them again.


This does not surprise me one bit! I used to work for the travel company Horizon based in Broadway Birmingham in overseas resorts and continued when Horizon were taken over by Thomson. That's when customer service went out of the window and customers were treated no better than cattle.

Tour Operators are a thing of the past ( still reliant on older generation ) as booking everything yourself can generally save you a fortune. Try claiming compensation from a Tour Operator? You would be lucky to receive a generic response within six weeks!

Tour Operator reps are old hat now a days too as nobody wants welcome meetings and many of the excursions that have been around with the dinosaurs. When travelling to the USA last year with Monarch we had a problem and a Virgin senior staff member said it was our fault for choosing a basic airline. I said yes it's true, but your own airline are not much better
( Virgin ) as what do you offer a a couple of free drinks served by an overweight trolley dolly!

Emirates are a class apart from most airlines and certainly far superior to the likes of Virgin and BA who are equally as useless.