"colegate" this past summer the whole B757 fleet has been configured for charter flights, that is not to say that the odd ZB service might have been carried out on them.
For your interest the plan for summer 07 was one B757 based at LGW to be used as a standby aircraft and this was achieved most of the time.
MON even charted other aircraft to cover for the loss of the A321s at the start of the season, this to still leave a standby aircraft available and l understand that one B757 will be a standby unit this summer.
"22/04", yes the GB A321s were decided before this summer started, so well before Easyjets takeover.
I understand from a well-placed source that Monarch are due to launch LGW - Larnaca and Mahon from Easter and beef up their LGW - TFS offering. All flights on sale from Monday
They are only selling 2, don't know about the rest.
From what I have heard, both A321s are heading to MAN and 1 A320 is heading south to LGW so both bases get new aircraft with MAN getting quite a big boost to it's available seats.
This will obviously mean new routes for LGW and maybe another for MAN? Or frequency increases?
I presume the newly announced MAN-LCA route will be operated by an A321? Also I've read somewhere that MAN-ACE will be upgraded to a 321 this summer, might be wrong about that though. BCN was upgraded from a 320 to a 321 this winter, so possibly that will remain 321 for the summer.
How long will it be untill monarch have realised they have made a big mistake making there airport managers redundant?. I bet it will not be long everyone upset by the news great people who work really hard for the respective bases. "Monarch an airline that cares" more like one that cares about its profit and not the staff that have been loyal over the years.
Wonder if ZB had thought of trying BHX-LCA and giving Cyprus Airways a run for their money. Would be good to see some all year round competition on the route from BHX. A new scheduled service may generate more traffic whilst I am sure ZB could easily take some of CY’s market share.
At present CY’s scheduled times are poor, they are rarely on time, the crews aren’t the friendliest and the aircraft interiors have seen better days (the airline appears to be stuck in a decade associated with Tears for Fears). CY ticket prices aren’t bad but they are nothing that ZB couldn’t compete with. If it was down to standard of service ZB would win every time. Any chance?
Yeah I have thought about that myself too. I would imagine if Monarch ZB are to start new routes from BHX...Larnaca should be one.
There seems to be some sort of a rumuor that BHX are in talks with Monarch to base an additional A321 later in the Summer...If that is true and did happen...then I would of thought they would add Cyprus fights.
Would be nice to see 5 Monarch A321's at BHX if it does happen.
I have heard a rumour, and I emphasise at this stage it is purely a rumour, that IB are interested in codesharing on some ZB routes between Spain and the UK. I know that before they turned their attentions to LoCo, Monarch were looking at various codeshare possibilities on their scheduled (ZB) routes. They work extremely closely with IB at all their Spanish destination airports, in fact I don't think there's one Spanish airport where they aren't handled by Iberia. By codesharing, IB would be able to get a piece of the Spain-UK market and it would allow UK passengers to connect in Spain onto Iberia services ie MAN-BCN-South America. In return ZB would see increased seat sales, an increased profile for Spanish based customers and it would create the possibility of opening new routes such as MAD.
New Routes and Expansion
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