Monarch 4

[rog747]

Monarch gave up L/H many moons ago with their pair of elderly A330's and the 4 long in the tooth A300-600R's which saw service to MCO/SFB Maldives Goa Banjul Mombasa Cancun and the Caribbean,
supplemented by the 757's for Agra and Kerala - all via BAH

OM/MON took over BCAL's old Golden Lion routes to the Caribbean and I think did quite well on those, plus had lucrative cruise ship charters with P&O and Fred Olsen also to the Caribbean.

The lone wolf DC-10 was used to good effect to Orlando mainly from MAN and was a handy people mover to the Med and the Canaries (like all of the other MON L/H fleet were used too)

Now the Global stage has changed drastically both in currency dips weak £ and loss of many holiday destinations due to the political and security problems in places like Kenya (Mombasa) Egypt Israel Tunisia Gambia - even Thailand is no longer a 'safe' bet.

An old fav like MCO/SFB Florida which OM/MON plied since the late 80's first with 757's then A300's via BGR surely now with such a weak £ v the $ would not be a sensible set up.
BA Virgin TUI DY and TCX dominate all of Florida, with even EI Icelandic and WOW offering cheap fares via points from LON

TUI have started MRU along with Condor - Virgin Atlantic gave that route up quite quickly as they could not compete with BA, Air MRU EK and AF

Norwegian/DY have now entered the USA and Global Long Haul stage big time not just to the USA but many other destinations with their brand new 787's from LGW.

Legacy full service carriers such as BA KLM LH (and Emirates for instance) have entered onto many of the L/H leisure routes such as the Maldives Cancun MRU CPT and now the Seychelles. Folk from MAN and the regionals can now access direct flights or via Euro and ME hubs

OM/MON used to have good L/H charter contracts with UK tour operators such as Kuoni Red Sea Holidays Hayes & Jarvis and Voyages Jules Verne to the Maldives Goa Jordan Gambia and Egypt but many of those have bit the dust such as Tapestry and Jewel in the Crown where MON also operated to specialised destinations such as Kerala Aqaba and Agra.
Mombasa is a dead duck and the Maldives is too expensive now as a ''charter'' destination.
As an aside Kuoni did own Edelweiss in Switzerland

TCX have been operating LGW-CPT last season non-stop with 3 a week on A330's
that's a big operation and I wonder how they faired?
Also sister Airline Condor is also part of the act with flights to CPT from LON MAN and UK regionals via FRA and MUC plus anywhere on their vast L/H route network via Germany.

so as you can see either somebody at Monarch is either a fool or very very brave (and in the know) also very very upbeat that they can re-enter the L/H arena -
BTW where are the planes coming from??