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Flying With Thomas Cook? Read This First

4 May 2017 | Mri Grout

Thomas Cook is a budget airline that offers a lo of relatively cheap flights to and from Europe year-round. Its low costs reel in tons of travelers looking for an affordable holiday, but few rarely look past the cheap price – especially when they’re flying longhaul. For though they know that Thomas Cook is a budget airline, they don’t know exactly how cheap it really is. Nevertheless, you can still travel in relative comfort when flying with Thomas Cook by simply packing these few extras in your carry on.

What You Should Pack When Flying With Thomas Cook

1. Food

Even on a longhaul flight, Thomas Cook will barely feed you. We flew ten hours with them, from MAN to LAS, and they only fed us twice. Now if the plane took off at 9am and landed at 7pm and they fed us well enough at 12pm and again at 6pm with a small snack inbetween then that wouldn’t be so bad. But of course they didn’t because they want you to buy food and so half of the food carts that pass you are purchase only (and of course at ridiculous prices). Also, the food that they do feed you wouldn’t fill a three year old, let alone a full grown adult. I’m barely over five feet and weigh 110 lbs/50kgs and when I flew with them I ended up getting a migraine and becoming lightheaded due to Thomas Cook’s small meal sizes.

2. Drink

Thomas Cook rarely gives you anything to drink when flying either and even if you ask for some water you’ll have to wait a good while because they’re busy with the cart of paid drinks. Now do they give you any drinks at meal times so if you can’t eat without one (say because you have a medical condition where you’re always constantly dehydrated and don’t make enough saliva to swollow easily) then you’ll simply have to wait until after they’ve collected everyone’s trash and come back through with the free drink cart.

*When the flight attendants aren’t busy however, you can walk back to their area with an empty bottle and they’ll fill it up for you.

3. Earphones

Thomas Cook does not supply earphones even on their longhaul flights – well not for free anyway. They’re £3 a piece, so I would suggest bringing your own. Some of their movies have subtitles, but they don’t tell you who’s speaking when so it can get very frustrating watching anything without them.

4. Entertainment

They only offered us five movies and 20 one episode series, so even the kindest of people would have to agree that Thomas Cook’s entertainment system on their longhaul flights is pretty crap. However, if you want to unlock another 25 movies and 40 TV episodes then that’ll cost you £5. But at least you’re able to flick through them before purchase to see if it’s even worth the upgrade. We didn’t think so, but then we didn’t have earphones anyway so take that how you will.

Another reason to bring your own entertainment when flying with Thomas Cook is that they can be late both in taking off and somehow also when already in the air. Our flight was three hours late and then went from being a 9 hour flight to 10.5.

Would Lifelong Vagabonds Fly With Thomas Cook Again?

If they’re the cheapest, then yes; we’ll just pack the above four items for a relatively comfort flight. If we have to get a hotel nearby to fly out in the morning and Thomas Cook offers a Sundown service in the city we fly from, then also yes. This allows one to check in both themselves and their carry on luggage from 18.00 – 22.00 the night before if you’re flying out before noon the next day. Thomas Cook’s Sundown service costs £5, but if you’re carrying a heavy or awkwardly sized load, it’ll not only be cheaper than taking a taxi to your hotel, but you also won’t have to lug the darn thing around and you can skip the flight check in queue in the morning.

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