Monarch

[BusyB]

Flew on Monarch this summer. Very disappointed. It used to give a quality product for the customers but not any more. Crews were competent and pleasant but the seats, seat pitch and the constant advertisements on the PA now makes the Monarch product just another cheap charter flight.

[Runway 31]

I was due to fly Monarch, Gatwick to Luxor on 1st August but we were delayed for 22hrs due to an aircraft defect followed by the crew running out of hours. I know that at this time of year spare aircraft are not easily available and I would rather get there safely so did not worry to much even though it used up a day of my holidays.

We were due to leave at mid day but the board suddenly changed to state "next update 1500". When the Groundstar staff were asked the told us about the defect and gave an £8 per person voucher for a meal. About 1630 we were told that the flight was delayed till the next morning and would leave at 0900. We were put up in the airport Hilton and received dinner about 2000 which was not well received due to most of the food being luke warm at best. I know that 300 unexpected guests is a lot but thought that they could have done better. BTW don't Hilton employ any English speaking staff as they all seemed to be Eastern European with only a smattering of English. We were then told that breakfast was not included but on arrival at the Groundstar desk the next morning we were told that they were waiting on the voucher being printed and eventually we received a voucher for the grand total of £4 each which buys next to nothing.

The flight itself although leaving an hour later than the rearranged schedule was rather uneventful and the crew were quite good and very appologetic about the delay. I would say however that there appeared to be one announcement after another telling us that the crew would be round selling us drinks, headsets, snacks, scratchcards etc which got rather annoying after a while. The meal while nothing out of the ordinary was O.K.

The flight back was again uneventful and arrived 25 minutes early but was marred by having to wait for the bags to arrive. Still I enjoyed the holiday and being a spotter passed away the hours at the airport taking pictures.

[Bumz_Rush]

I flew Monarch last week, and they were good.

So whats your problem....

[BusyB]

BR,
How tall are you?

[Bumz_Rush]

A normal seat in charter flights has a very short seat pitch.

The pay extra seats are fine.....

Bumz

[BusyB]

BR,

I'm 6'2", All my comments still stand, there was no opportunity to purchase extra leg room seats as the schedule was changed by Monarch 8 weeks before departure to a different flight number.
Rgds