It is nothing new. Back in the late 1980s or early 1990s I caught the Dan Air shuttle from Manchester to Gatwick, plane said Dan Air on the outside but the signs in the cabin and the booklets etc in the seat back where in no language I could recognise.
Flight to Gatwick was fine, I had a business meeting there and caught the same plane back. Very shortly after take off from Gatwick there was a loud and quite violent engine failure and we returned to Gatwick. Turned out, or so a uniformed Dan Air employee that was a fellow passenger told me, the plane and engines were made in Rumania, the plane was flown by Rumanians but the passenger cabin crew were Dan Air.

True - but that doesn't mean it makes good business sense when an incident such as that at BHX today occurs.

When I buy a brand it speaks something to me about why they do what they do

It's an airline, it's branded as an airline - Monarch are a charter airline, Aurela are a charter airline - so they do what they do, which is get people from A-B in planes?

Bad business move or not, Monarch have been leasing planes from Aurela since 2009, Aurela are an EASA compliant airline so the maintenance should be on par with other EASA companies.

Clapped out aircraft is an ill-considered statement considering that the media have quoted this forum on countless occasions - your opinion or fact? Proof required methinks.
IF, and it is a big if, this is fact, then it's a bad business move by Monarch.

You are illogical if you assume that because a Lithuanian plane goes off piste whilst being flown on a UK charter it's clapped out because it's certainly not a rational or logical conclusion.

I've booked flights with one airline and travelled on another, just like the majority of the folk travelling I was just glad that a flight was available.

I'll see what the report says

Wet runway, pax reported a "rally slide off the runway" No sign of damaged tyres which would hardly cause that anyway. Turned long after reversers would be stowed.
Shonky Lithuanian subcharter. Go figure.

That's taking cost cutting to stupid levels. Own goal Monarch!

Glad I don't own Monarch shares, companies can do serious damage to themselves with incident(s) like that.

Momoe, I willa accept that my use of the term "clapped out" may be inappropriate but correct me if I am wrong that this was a Boeing 737-300?

Apart from that correction I stand by any remarks I have made.

From Wiki:-

I once bought a well-known brand of washing machine. When it went wrong, the chap who fixed it said "oh, this is one of those the company sub-contracted to eastern europe. The only bit of company XXX is the badge on the front.' Did I demand a public enquiry? No, of course not, because I'd bought it because it was fifty quid cheaper than the next one.
Hands up all those who, when they booked their flight from Birmingam to Nice, made their decision based on the price of the ticket.
I'm getting a little tired, after 30 years in UK charter, of people who want 34-inch seat pitch, personal taxis to the airport and the :mad: Waldof Astoria to stay in when they get a delay, but whose first action when deciding to take a break is to google "cheap holidays".

fireflybob - when I booked there was no indication that the flight would be operated by another airline/aircraft.

I'm sure there is something in the tiny smallprint that says this may occur, but this is clearly a case where the subbed aircraft were going to be based at BHX for the season, so Monarch absolutely knew when taking bookings that this would be the case.

You are correct that it is a 737-300 of some 24 years vintage, not that that in itself is a problem to me. It is not what I expected/paid for when I booked.

So clearly (no pun intended) a lack of transparency.

One of the things that consumers are looking for more and more is transparency so this is very "down trend" thinking.

By the way, deepknight, methinks washing machines don't normally get airborne but your similarity there reminds me of the Colgan accident in the USA where the aircraft was clearly marked as "Continental" but unbeknown to the passengers was operated by a third party. This clearly didn't happen here (although one wonders why the airline name isn't on the aircraft as far as I can tell from the photos and also pointed out on Wiki). Legislation has been introduced in the USA to prevent this from happening.

Stop inferring that the age of the aircraft has any relevancy, it's just as like to be the age/experience of the pilot

As I said it's an EASA compliant airline, lifed components will be replaced on schedule and all Maint. schedules followed, you know as well as I do that the plane will be like Trigger's broom.
I don't know how many cycles the aircraft has done or total hours, I also don't know whether it was a tech issue or pilot error and nor do you.

As stated in the previous post, Aurela has been providing planes to Monarch since 2009, bad business move or good business sense - 3 years is a long time in aviation and Monarch haven't suffered unduly.

I'm not second guessing the cause of this excursion, but you can draw conclusions on yet another crass decision by the pinheaded nitwits on the top floor - penny wise, pound foolish.
Monarch crew, engineers, ops guys and pensioners deserve better, so do the punters.

Deepknight, here was my reasoning for purchasing this flight:

I needed to travel to the south of france but I didn't specifically have to go to Nice, although it was nearest to the place I needed to be. I could have used other airports in that region or even just over in to Spain as I was going to have to drive a way anyway.

My choices were to take Ryanair to Montpellier from Birmingham or drive to Gatwick and take easy jet, both roughly around half the price I actually paid Monarch. In both cases the extra driving was a drag/cost.

Not a problem thought I, here is Monarch who will fly me direct from Birmingham to Nice which is closest to where I want to go, for about 250 quid return, they are a quality airline and have a good reputation, I've been with them before and know what to expect.

That wasn't the experience I got when I turned up on the day.

ffbob...the subcharters were because the opportunity that presented itself due to the demise of Baby did not provide Monarch with enough time to source aircraft of their own AND train crews to operate them. Despite popular and armchair expert opinion there are not aircraft just sitting around waiting for airlines to pick them up at "aircraft'R'us" and the crewing process will take a minimum of 6 months. Monarch stated at the time that these wet-leases were for a maximum of 12 weeks. Come clock change in Oct they all go with the EMA programme operated on Monarch owned and operated aircraft.

Nice to see renort here with the usual anti-Monarch bullsh*t...off you go son..

On the subject of wet-leasing, there can be some upsides. A couple of years ago I was booked on Easyjet from LGW to SKG. At the gate I expected to be shepherded onto a regular A319. Much to my surprise, though, we boarded a B757 - painted in Easy's colours, but operated by Air Finland, with the full complement of Finnish flight and (delightful) cabin crew...

Complaining never entered my head!;)

ffbob...ALL passengers on any wet-leased aircraft were notified that Monarch were not the operator of the aircraft....fact, not conjecture.

Slight point of order This was not a charter, but a ZB scheduled flight.

The only reason Monarch are chartering these aircraft is because it decided to start new services without the equipment or staff to operate them.

A few years ago I booked with Thomson on a new "scheduled" service, it was subbed out on a 35 year old B737-200. I declined to fly & have never flown with Thomson since.

Yes passengers have a choice, please don't assume that just because you fly Ryanair or Monarch you are paying peanuts - some are, but many are paying top dollar for flights !!
The pricing by Monarch on some MAN-BCN services have been so high, I've been travelling with KLM on that route.(*via AMS of course)

Well said deep knight people love moaning but expect quality for a pitence if you want a safe and quality experience don't book cheap

Not fact Tartin, because I wasn't

All European airlines maybe EASA compliant but dont believe for one minute that all European Aviation Authorities are as through as the UK's own CAA because it just isn't true.

Monarch, Aurela, naw lad, allways fly

YORKSHIRE AIRWAYS


Bloomin good service !!

TartinTon, can I ask at what stage the passengers were informed? At the time of booking?