Monarch A330 acqisition/A300 sale

[pinkaroo]

I heard a rumour Monarch have acquired a couple of A330 aircraft and have sold a couple of A300 as freighters. Can anyone confirm this.

[Localiser Green]

Can't confirm the rumour I'm afraid, but Monarch have been using the A330 quite extensively from MAN & LGW on the European shorthauls this Summer, perhaps they have proved their versatility?

If they got a good deal selling off the A300s then I imagine a couple of redundant nearly-new A332s wouldn't be hard to come by in the present marketplace at a reasonable lease cost.

Would be interesting to hear the official story from anyone at Spotty M though.

[Georgeablelovehowindia]

If this turns out to be true 'anyone at spotty M' will be the last to learn about it...

[Flightrider]

Am hearing similar rumours of fleet changes. The version I heard was that all four A300s were to go, replaced by a mix of A330s and B757s - the latter on "flexi-leases" helped by the large number of 757s on the lease market at the moment. Probably sensible from a beancounter's perspective - standardise the fleet by getting rid of one type, get in some relatively cheap A330s, reduce winter commitments by taking summer-only 757s and cut some capacity out. Spotty M do appear to end up giving away (metaphorically speaking) blocks of seats to tour operators at very cheap rates on quite a few A300 routes just to keep the aircraft flying full.

[rentaghost]

I would be very surprised if MON were to be releasing the A300's as they are very successful 'cash cows' due to their size.

Also I would say it unlikely that 757's would replace these as the 757 is starting to get a bit 'long in the tooth' and the maintenance costs are starting to increase as well as the time needed on the ground to service them.