Monarch - 3

[OltonPete]

Monarch

G-FORZ

In general you might be right but not the case at BHX, Monarch offer 17 destinations as a schedule operation not offered by any other airline (soon to be 15) and 8 of those are not served in any form at all although all but three of the 8 can be reached from the Midlands via EMA.

However they do a good job for BHX with EasyJet not interested, Ryanair very cautious and Flybe don't have the right equipment for some of these routes or the right cost-base by the look of it.

I used them recently to Preveza (Parga) which was a destination I wanted to visit for years but I was not prepared to travel north or south for the family holiday although I have used Gatwick this year (BGI) and will be using Heathrow soon (Avios) but in this case it was Monarch that provided the service I wanted. Coincidentally Flybe now also have a charter a few minutes after the ZB flight but for a specialised IT operator with eye-watering prices.

I do understand your point about from Manchester and Gatwick but for BHX they do fill a gap in the market where others have failed or are not interested.

The product was excellent, flights, crew (all but one newbie on the way out), extra leg-room although I chose standard seats on the way out which were fabric and the leg-room was non-existent and that was a negative.

Even got an airbridge at BHX which was attached in seconds (yes thumbs up Swissport) on a busy Sunday afternoon and as I was in row 5, I was off in minutes and bags were only 30-35 minutes.

It is difficult to compare with other airlines as I have either used Thomson (short-haul holidays) or long-haul scheduled recently but miles better than my last experience with Ryanair although to be fair that was a long time ago before allocated seating so hardly an up to date comparison.

BHX seems to be unlucky with two of their local airlines experiencing difficulties with aircraft on expensive leases (ZB Airbus & Flybe Embraer).


NB. Booked with Monarch Holidays but my Credit Card shows Cosmos