Blimey! The same 787s that were cancelled many years ago!

I think you ought to take more water with it next time ratcheting!

Even if they were getting A330 which they aren`t it wouldn`t be from Tanker as all their aircraft available for lease are accounted for by TCX and LS

A330's from air tanker? just some pub talk I think

the MON/OM 787's were canx years ago

but the rumour mill is now grinding a tale at Monarch Towers that long haul is maybe back on the cards

:} Along with sub orbital flights also!

Thought these posts were years old when first reading . Why would they go back into long haul when they were so bad at it

Because they need a niche. When everyone else was falling FR and U2 down the "unbundling" route they did that. When they see LS make hay in their former backyard they suddenly wanted to do the "holiday" thing. Now TOM and especially TCX are doing well on long haul, they fancy a bit of that.

Shame they cancelled those 787s. They would have had a good head start. The short-haul model isn't looking so clever now with Sterling and Euro being close to parity (or worse) for the foreseeable future. TOM FR, U2 and TCX can move aircraft around Europe - MON cannot.

Some of this rumour may originate from the fact that a customer survey went out canvassing opinions on favourite short and long haul destinations.

apart from the Caribbean where Monarch picked up the old BCAL Golden Lion routes the long haul destinations Monarch operated to previously are either off the bucket list such as Mombasa or too expensive now as a charter holiday such as the Maldives (saturated now with scheduled legacy operators)

MCO/SFB $ to £ is awful - Does Disney and Florida still sell like it did?

Mexico Cancun - everyone is doing well here - too late for MON?

Hawaii - a long way to go

Goa Trivandrum (Kerala) and Agra - maybe - Kuoni and Voyages Jules Verne have a large specialised holiday programme to India and were previous big clients of Monarch for many years with a big series of flights to India plus Egypt and Jordan

CMB - Sri Lanka recovering from post civil war but is a big market

Canada - West Jet Air Transat Condor and TCX all do rather well - very seasonal traditionally

Cape Town - Condor/TCX on that one as with MRU (also Thomson go to MRU) again CPT is seasonal

SEZ Seychelles Condor and scheduled legacy carriers - very expensive like the Maldives

Thailand BKK Phuket - Hmm I would doubt it

Banjul - Hmm whats left there?


all of Egypt has for now gone west (although here and Aqaba for Petra in Jordan were flown mostly as there and backs)

In Germany LTU and Balair sold to Air Berlin - now they are bust so Condor has the field to themselves for long haul leisure for now - old fleet 767-300ER needs replacing in the future despite a face lift for the interiors

Does ratchetring want to make any comments!

Would love to see that happen, where's have you heard that from and I doubt it's any more concrete than rumours

Sounds to me like Monarch are too reactive and need to find a niche for themselves. They'll struggle to find one that isn't already covered now though... even Iceland has been taken.

I wouldn't say that at all. They have seen opportunities to develop non bucket-and-spade destinations from BHX such as Lisbon, Oporto, Stockholm, Valencia and Zagreb and if what we hear is true they are proving pretty successful. Certainly the traditional Spanish destinations are saturated, even the Spanish are railing against the quantity (and probably quality) of tourists they are being flooded with.

If I were Monarch I'd be looking at developing destinations like Burgas and Varna in the B+S field, and look towards routes like Ljubljana, Ohrid, Belgrade, Helsinki, on initially low frequency, aimed at the short break market. Destinations away from Euroland are likely to do particularly well, but also because of the low value of sterling, major UK cities like Birmingham and Leeds, with good shopping opportunities, plus culture and history on their doorsteps ought to thrive from some of the bigger population centres in Europe.

There's a lot more to Europe than the traditional "Costas" and serving the British tourist.

Yes I think in the past Monarch have been sheep, waited for others to do it and followed. But now they are trying to move away from that, the new short breaks they have introduced seem to be going well. They still need to continue the norm bucket and spade routes, they are popular and would be stupid to give their market share of those up. But with a fleet expansion up to 45 SH aircraft, hopefully we will see new routes being announced (they do have a company coming in to look into new potential routes ect)

A return to LH would be a good move but they need to find routes they can make work. And to those who say they were never good at LH in the last don't know what they are on about. Considering they only had two proper LH aircraft (A330) they made the operation work very well

Or bin off LBA and move down the road to DSA.
TOM are creaming the top off these routes and MON could take the B&S market for South Yorkshire, North Notts & Humberside areas.

What you are all saying is that Monarch needs a Unique Selling Point, and it's not clear what that is. Inbound tourists are certainly a growth market, but Monarch surely don't have a brand in these countries; they're more likely to use an airline they've heard of. The only possibility to me, not already mentioned, is to target the specialist tour operators who currently book space on Easyjet or Ryanair. Their customers might appreciate being away from the hoards.

What other regional airports could they move into?

It seems that the Nile Cruise market is picking up once again after the horrors of the revolution. It would be good to see Monarch fly to Luxor and tap into this market and combine it with a Red Sea break in Hughada.

yes but they made sterling good work of the 757's A300's the venerable DC-10 (and MD11 leases) plus the 767-300

back in the day the BAH and BGR (for MCO) hubs saw a few crews there with onward flights tech stopping in BAH for charters to Goa Agra CMB Male Trivandrum

the 757 went everywhere at first then the A300's took over
the 757 continued with Agra and Kerala

Mombasa tech stopped at Cairo or was it HER?

the A330's came into their own for non-stops to Goa USA/Canada, a big Caribbean programme and Male Maldives

the DC-10 was used for mainly Florida or as a short haul people mover

yes Monarch had many flights to the Nile region Luxor and Aswan - A massive programme indeed
(and likewise of course to the Red Sea too - SSH Marsa Alarm and Hurghada plus Aqaba and Eilat too via Ovda)

any return to the Nile destinations (my Fav's and I sorely miss going there) is driven by the FCO & local security and is then up to the Tour operators such as Red Sea holidays Kuoni VJV etc to take the risk to go back
the market is there but depends when it is safe to go back en-masse - but frankly in the current climes I cannot see that happening for yonks

operators putting their toes back in the Nile region use Egyptair who still have their LHR Monday LXR non-stop - not sure if Thomon's LXR charter still operates for next season?