Monarch's presentation of it's service is stuck in the '70's era of air travel. I recently flew on a scheduled service of theirs to a Spanish destination. Despite maybe 50% of the passengers being Spanish not a single announcement either at the UK Gate or on board was made in Spanish. When I enquired as to why, the answer was that it was company policy to only make announcements in English. Not good enough.
I agree the payment of a fee to check in online is a cheek, MON should be offering a discount to do this as it reduces their costs.
The major problem for employees past & present is their underfunded pension fund, good luck with that.