Phil, be realistic, a less than 7 hour delay is hardly a reason to pay all of those expenses. Yes, it's an inconvenience and nobody wants it, but I don't see how a 7 hour delay would leave you that far out of pocket.

The choice not to go to work was your decision.

When you realise how much correspondence gets directed in Kevin's direction (especially given the 6.5 million pax we carry a year) then expecting any airline to simply go "oh alright then here's all the money for no particular reason" is well, naive.

Sorry and you'll get annoyed by it, but be realistic please. We are sorry when people get delayed and are doing a huge amount of work to cut down the number of people that get affected, but it happens. You might make €1500 out of EU261 from us, but did you really suffer €1500 of loss? Of course not.

This is not an official position by any means at all, just my opinion and I think that sort of figure is ridiculous.

Passengers will of course end up paying for this, so if you're happy with that, then great. Personally I think we should recompense people sensibly when needed, but that passengers should also realise that delays are always an unwelcome possibility. When I'm a pax, then they annoy me to bits, but as a person who also understands what goes on in the background, I also understand why they happen and the astonishing efforts that go on to try and fix these problems.

Gosh I hope you were okay.

What's wrong with the Monarch fleet at the minute? I have seen several airlines operating for them on flight radar this evening, the following include; Pullmantur air 747 and Titan 757 from MAN & Meridiana fly 320 from EMA

Say again slowly, is this how you talk to all your customers?

No matter what you think of EU 261, the law is the law. Patronising the people who pay your wages isn't going to improve things, your time would be better spent lobbying those with the power to change this ridiculous law.

Monarch is starting to change the seats on its a/c replacing them by light weight ones.
Half of the fleet should be done by June.
B757 and a300 are not part of it.
This may be the reason for the use of other airlines while a big part of the fleet goes in the hangar in a short period.

Oddly enough, customer relations isn't something I do at work. Which is fortunate.

However, I'm not at work here so I'm free to put my own opinion across and when I think someone is a whinger who's being totally unreasonable, then I'll say it. No matter what a bit of EU legislation (which no one here got the chance to vote on) might say.

I worry about trying to make sure that we run more efficiently and fix problems that cause delays so that passengers get the service they should get, hitting us with ridiculous and frankly unwarranted claims, won't make the blindest bit of difference to that.

I have seen and heard many calls from the people down in customer services and the amount of ficticious rubbish and downright rudeness and abuse they get from passengers is completely insane. Spurious issues and vastly over inflated claims make up a huge amount of the stuff that happens and I know how much effort they put in to deal with problems for passengers. I left at 1930 tonight and more than a few were still there sorting stuff out, they don't get paid for that and are supposed to finish at 1730, but they were still there dealing with issues, as they do most nights.

So I won't hear any rubbish about customer care at Monarch, passengers are just lucky that they have nice people to deal with in the customer care area rather than people like me that would just tell them to naff off and stop being so pathetic.

When we do have a real issue and it is a really big problem for people, then of course we should do everything we can to help, but that doesn't mean that forking out €1500 for a 6 hour delay to someone who probably paid a fraction of that for the tickets in the first place is even remotely sensible.

The reason for using other people to fly our pax at the moment isn't because of the new seats, but for a few other reasons mainly involving a couple of hard landings that took a couple of aircraft out for checks at exactly the wrong time.

Monarch has more capacity this year than it has for a long time, so using other carriers is not by choice.

Anyone know what the new seats onboard look like? Any pics?

They look great. Though it's half the fleet to be done by early July not June! Fitting doesn't start for a few weeks yet, so no seats on board as yet.

Say again slowly....I shall say this again slowly.....excuse the pun.

I didn't ask for €1,500 initially, I asked for £375, which I believe was reasonable, only when I was fobbed off did I pursue under EU261, if you'd read my previous post in full you would have noticed that I don't especially agree with EU261, however Monarch left me no option.

The £375 included £30 spent on refreshments outbound which should have been FOC due to the delay - I presume you cannot argue with that one?

I don't see what your objection to me asking for contribution towards my days leave is. Our flight was due to land at 10pm, we landed at 5am or suchlike. I have a tough job and to go to work immediately after arriving home after zero sleep wasn't an option. My leave is valuable to me and my family, Monarch's delays (due to a faulty aircraft) cost me a days holiday, only right to re-imburse. Instead, they sent me a patronising letter,therefore I pursue my legal rights which are to €1,500. I might well give most of it to charity, that's not the point, the point is they delayed us, caused significant disruption, when I tried to be reasonable and not use EU261 they fobbed me off, I either let it go or use legal rights, what would you do?

You should have had "meals and refreshments in a reasonable relation to the
waiting time", in the airport during the delay (usually by means of a voucher), not on board the flight. If they don't give vouchers out in the airport, airlines will usually reimburse a set amount, or expenses within reason (which doesn't mean you will get what you paid out necessarily, and wouldn't normally amount to £30). hey don't have to pay for consequential loss. Possibly they thought it was excessive, hence the refusal to pay?

In Scandinavia (which has just finished its 'peak' season - ie winter) a number of 'no win-no fee' lawyers have set themselves up exclusively to act on 261 claims. Approaching passengers when they see there has been a big delay via social networks and very clever targeted marketing. 261 could well be this years PPI.

If I was suitably qualified, and so inclined, I'd set up airlineclaims4u.com right now.

The cuts at Luton...
 

I was looking at the below document and noticed there is some serious cut backs in capacity from LTN this summer.

http://www.acl-uk.org/UserFiles/File...SON_REPORT.pdf

The document states how Monarch have 39,000 less seats on sale for this summer, compared to last year... But this shows the Munich service still operating and if you take into account this route being cut this summer, it probably increases the cut in capacity to around 55-60,000.

The airline reduced the fleet from five to four aircraft last year at the airport, it appears this is the same number operating this year...

Nearly every route is seeing some cut in capacity.

Does anyone know what is happening with this cut in capacity? Is the airline parking up the aircraft for the periods it would have been operating this additional capacity (eg with longer turnaround times, maybe not operating overnight and doing "W" flights), or will we some last minute additional capacity added to the popular destinations for the peak summer months?

What is the catalyst for all these cut backs at Luton? I regularly fly with Monarch year round from the airport and the flights are nearly always 90% plus full? The airport has a loyal following of Monarch passengers, who would rather use them over easyJet, even if prices are higher.

I appreciate the airline is focusing growth at other UK airports at present, but cuts don't seem to be happening at the other bases with the fleet and with the fleet that is based at the airport there seems to be spare capacity going by these numbers and the cutting of the Munich route.

Quite Ironic really when outside their Luton HQ building, they are boasting about operating more routes, on the advertising board.

With a new MAEL hanger being built at BHX and a larger sized fleet based there, is this the thin edge of the wedge for an eventual withdrawl from LTN ?

Monach Engineering will be looking after Flybe aircraft at Birmingham.

Why are there so many sub-charters for Monarch this week? I see a 737-400 is spending the weekend at Luton. Titan into Gatwick, Neos and Meridianafly using East Midlands yesterday.

I think the ltn-gib are nearly all w flights now. The weekly a300 Palma on sat was replaced with a a320 last year.

Went to alicante last November and there wasn't an empty seat there or back, so there must be demand for the seats or perhaps even additional capacity. It looks like their focusing more on lba, bhx and ema, where there is less competition from lcc's.

MAEL have always had an issue with parking fees at LTN. OK for a quick turn around but not at all good for a longer stay outside the hangar.

Buster - due late arrival of fleet additions

PhilW1981 - You don't say what hours you work, but you were happy that you would be fit to work after a 22.00 scheduled arrival the previous day? Given a normal 9-5ish working day, if one of my staff phoned in in these circumstances saying they were unfit to work I wouldn't have been happy and would have suggested that they should have allowed for a possible delay and should factor that in when booking their leave in future...

Buster - from the end of post 1401

Sub Charters
 

There was a Pullmantur 744 at MAN yesterday doing I think Paphos