FOAK: Monarch Airlines

Through a variety of reasons I may be "forced" to take a charter flight
with Monarch Airlines. Anyone flown with them, and is the upgrade that
they offer worth it in terms of legroom?

 

Through a variety of reasons I may be "forced" to take a charter flight

I flew, I survived, which is more than can be said for my Samsonite suitcase
which didn't. [1]

Buzby

[1] Judging by the state of it I reckon they must have lobbed it out whilst
in the circuit before landing to save turn around time.

 

Through a variety of reasons I may be "forced" to take a charter flight

Best place to site

http://aviation-safety.net/airlinesafety/safestloc.html

 

In

Agreed .. .I was on one of their flights to Mombasa for about 13 hours.

13 bloody painful hours of knees rammed up against the back of the seat
in front due to minimal legroom.

Which is why when I travelled with EasyJet I was suprised how good the
legroom was on the flight to Amsterdam recently.


--
Steve Parry

http://www.gwynfryn.co.uk

http://www.arrivedeprived.org.uk/

K100RS SE
F650
(not forgetting the SK90PY)

 

Sod that. If I pay for an upgrade, I want legroom. <fx: Heads off to
opodo>

 

I didn't think the baggage handlers actually worked for the airline, I
thought they worked for the airport. I tend to consider it a bonus when
my luggage arrives intact.

 

Depends on the airport/airline. In general the 'home' operator (e.g.
BA at LHR) may have their own staff, then hire their services out to
other users, but in some places it's all done by airport employees.

Really? I've only once had a piece delayed (for 24 hrs, given a 35
minute transfer at Frankfurt) and never lost anything. Oh, a Swiss
Army Knife which was checked in on it's own at a tiny Greek airport
went walkies once, but that's all.

 

don't know about the upgrade, but my experience of them was utter
shite.

Flew to Cuba with them about 10 years ago, and the entire experience
was abysmal:

On the way out, the plane had some problems with the undercarriage, and
we waited on the plane 2 hours after the time it was due to leave -
then they got us off the plane and we waited about 4 hours in the
lounge. Then back on the plane, and another >1 hour wait until take
off, so we arrived in the middle of the night rather than early
afternoon, and had to wait another 3 hours at the airport until someone
managed to wake up a coach driver to take us to our hotels.

On the flight itself, the legroom, food, etc. where shite - considering
how much they'd made us wait already, they made no effort to be
helpful.

On the way back, we got to the airport to be told that the plane had
broken down, and needed some new parts from the airport - these had to
be flown in from the UK, eventually by BA...4 days later. Though at
least we got put in an all-inclusive hotel for the 4 extra days.

Utter, utter shite. Thankfully my employers were fairly cool with the
extra unplanned holiday.

I did write letters of complaint to Monarch, the travel agent and the
tour operator, and I did eventually get a total compensation of about
1/2 the original cost of the holiday, but it didn't make up for it.

If you have any way at all of avoiding flying with Monarch, I would.

 

The only time I have flown Monarch was on a trooping flight from
Akrotiri to Luton.
OK it was 18 yrs ago, but the plane was new, the gurlies very nice,
food mediocre.
I thought they handled a squadron of sun browned squaddies very well
and the flight was far better than the Crab Air equivalent as were
were treated like paying punters rather than squaddies.

--
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I flew with them once. They forgot to put any food on board.

 

You got lucky.

 

We flew with them to Portugal this year, and they were fine.
My son is disabled, and so we got the leg room upgrade for
free, and the staff could not be more helpful. Even the food
wasn't bad.