Rushed approach
 

Yes add LGW but as you say with both easyJet & Norwegian there it will become increasingly difficult for them.

Yellow Sun

Agree 100% but alas bmi is history & a lot of jobs went down the drain, the irony is not lost on me that the new boss at Monarch is ex BA

Awful news for the Monarch staff. I hope it turns over for them. A great name in the industry. It does make you wonder where their model fits. Competing directly with the low cost monsters to similar pairs starting on a lower peg costs wise. Flybe have done very well to embrace their unique selling point and corner a little market in the UK. Monarch don't have that. I really do hope they can pull it off, I'd rather fly with them than certain other airlines. All the best for all at the company.

AdM, then maybe you should look closer to home as to why these pilots felt they had to leave in the first place. Your hindsight is second to none.

To be fair to AdM, he has been warning of the foolishness of leaving a large successful organisation for a smaller operator with less secure financials ever since some pilots first threatened to jump ship several years ago. Many cadet pilots felt hard done by and wanted to stick two fingers up at the orange flexi-crew machine. This was at a time when the flexi crew situation had become particularly dire and now things have thankfully improved. Clearly no one is delighting in other's misfortune but on this occasion, he is entitled to a gentle 'I told you so'.

BBC News
 

Here it is..

BBC News - Monarch airlines plans to slash workforce by up to 30%

ADM isn't entitled to display the wonderful benefit of hindsight. The guys who left EZY did so because their terms were shocking. ADM sits from the comfortable position of a left seat training job where it's easy to scoff at those getting shafted by his own airline. MON offered guys good terms on permanent contracts as they did to a number of ex BMI Baby guys who also witnessed their jobs go down the toilet pan.

Good luck to Monarch and all those within it. A far superior airline than the likes of Easyjet will ever be.

I don't see them as being any worse mor superior compared to ezy. Here both ULCCs. They both have a basic service. The onboard experience is almost identical. And MON charge you for using online check in (ie they make you choose a seat at £6.50). With easyJet it is free and straight into my iphone ready to go. It's never that easy with MON. Legroom ain't great on either, nut at least with EZY I'm not subjected to the pleather seating. Cabin crew good and bad with both. But one event sticks out with MON. I'll fly them if they're the cheapest as they don't have a USP to attract me and that's your problem. People see the MON/U2/FR product as the same and they'll buy a ticket on the cheapest flight. MON does not have the cost base of U2/FR and that is another problem. Their fares will always need to be higher than the others to generate a profit.

Good luck to all at MON. It can't be a nice experience to go through.

90, do you have big fat fingers and were you typing on your iPhone?

Good luck to Monarch. I'd pay extra just to avoid O'Leary's aggressive organisation. Same goes for the Orange behemoth too.

And so, the PR bandwagon has started with talk of 1,000 job losses that will be whittled down, and make the employees ever so grateful it wasn't actually 1,000.

If the Board do not disclose further information to their employees, I suggest you ask for a copy of the Information Memorandum that has been sent out to potential investors.

I have to ask, what criteria are you basing that on? I work for a competitor airline to Monarch and easyJet, I'm always back and forth to the likes of Turkey to work, often using one of these carriers. From a passenger's point of view I genuinely can't see one category in which Monarch are "far superior". I can't even fit in the seats on the Monarch 757 (and I'm only 6 foot). EasyJet get an awful lot right, I honestly can't say I've seen anything approaching the same quality and consistency of product from Monarch.

Monarch's presentation of it's service is stuck in the '70's era of air travel. I recently flew on a scheduled service of theirs to a Spanish destination. Despite maybe 50% of the passengers being Spanish not a single announcement either at the UK Gate or on board was made in Spanish. When I enquired as to why, the answer was that it was company policy to only make announcements in English. Not good enough.
I agree the payment of a fee to check in online is a cheek, MON should be offering a discount to do this as it reduces their costs.
The major problem for employees past & present is their underfunded pension fund, good luck with that.

Certainly on U2/FR languages are made in English and the main language of the destination being flown to.

The two airlines also have a much more comprehensive route network and better frequencies than MON. Can anyone actually tell me what makes Monarch so special?

U2/FR have been running as viable, efficient and profitable airlines for many years now. Monarch has not, in the full knowledge that if the going gets tough the M family will just write a blank cheque. The party is now well and truly over and they're up the creek without a paddle if they don't get investors in.

I've heard it said a good few times that Monarch will never go under because of their M family ties. Without the M family to bail them out, who knows what the future holds. But good luck to all.

It is awful to see the rise of the low cost operators and the demise of decent companies.

Even those in the "blue and orange bubble" surely have the basic intelligence to see the damaging effect their companies are having on the industry as a whole

Good luck to the Monarch guys and gals affected by this dreadful news.

With respect Monarch have been in business for a lot longer than FR and U2. They also had access to funding and could have got any fleet they wanted. They lacked the vision of the big 2, saw how successful they were and did very little about it. Now almost 20 years on they've decided they want a piece of the action.

The big two provide lots of reasonably secure jobs for which many are grateful for. Those who've ploughed £100,000 in to training certainly do. Out of work with £1000 a month loan repayments in one scary place to be in I should imagine.

Bad times.
 

Monarch was the airline of choice for many years for those pilots looking for a full career with a balanced life, fair renumeration and of course the excellent pension. The standards within the airline were equal to any and better than most. The news that they may be in a bit of bother will come as a hammer blow, whether still working within the airline or retired. Of course they can continue but for most junior captains and below there can now be only one sensible choice, and as difficult as it is they must seek alternative employment if they wish a career. A shrinking airline is no place to be; ask the ex MyTravel/Thomas Cook pilots caught in the same position.

Monarch sell a lot of seats to small travel companies, many of which are struggling: they operate from expensive but poor quality airports (although they have sensibly got rid of the worst): as they shrink they will offer less route choices and they do not have the established schedule customer base of the likes of ezy. But most telling, they have ordered the wrong aircraft. I do not know anybody who prefers Ryan to Ezy. The passengers may not know which aircraft they are flying in but they do know which is most comfortable with wider seats, easier overhead stowage and better ambience. To order an aircraft with a fuselage designed not long after the end of the Second World War seems foolish. Airbus now even consider the A320 is becoming too narrow for modern day figures! The737 will be the MD80 of the twenty twenties, loved but no longer wanted. (Although come to think of it the 737 would be great configured like the MD - 3/2!)

Anyway, drastic action may hopefully see Monarch continue as a niche airline but the days of the pilots choice must be gone. The great shame is that in their day they did treat pilots decently and were rewarded with highly professional and competent crews who got the job done. They deserve better.

Laarbruch72

I base my assertion relating to the section of pprune that this thread was started - Terms & Endearment. It's not from a SLF perspective.

Monarch is one of the few airlines in the UK worthy of the title of 'career airline.' It has always presented itself as an organisation that looks after it's employees. Unfortunately it appears that many may indeed fall fowl of the sword and invariably, in the long term, Monarch's envied terms and conditions may be a thing of the past as it trims back in order to become profitable. We are already seeing this with British Airways, an already profitable entity within IAG.

quartic, Monarch have ordered the 737 MAX, which will have the 'sky interior' (the same as the 787, which has proven to be a success with PAX). Even 737NG's have the option of having the sky interior installed, RYR just don't buy that option.
Maybe you should book a ticket on a Norwegian or Thomson 737 and have a look for yourself before you accuse Monarch management of ordering the wrong airplane, based on your perceived views of its Cabin.

Seat width between the two types is almost identical, the overhead bins on the 'sky interior' are bigger, easier to use and create a wider cabin to stand up in, and mood lighting comes as standard.

Back on topic,
Monarch was a career airline 10 years ago, its recent history has shown nothing but poor results despite continued investment. Its latest expansion was a 'go big or go home' move, and many pilots recognised that and didn't apply for that very reason.
It seems the gamble they took is not going to pay off, Monarch is actively positioning itself as a small scheduled airline, and that model has proven time and time again not to work in modern aviation. I wish everyone at Monarch all the best, it was an airline I always wanted to fly for, it may continue to plod along for another 5 years however I think the best outcome now will be a merger. But realistically that is also unlikely.

Monarch will be a tough place going forwards.

It's management have gone to a "don't let a good crisis go to waste" training school.

Talk of shedding 1/3 of jobs is extreme, even if just a game.

Competing with the loco's - Tesco tried this recently....

I feel very sorry for all the loyal staff at Monarch, who are entering the "shall I hang on and hope or jump now before the market is swamped with unemployed colleagues" phase. At least the demise of Air Europe was unexpected and sudden.

There aren't many places to go, unless they go off to the Middle East.

Did MON not increase their fleet size a couple of years back to increase economies of scale? What's changed now to make fewer aircraft the way forward?

Looking at it from the outside it's hard to see a market for them though. EZY/FR have the low cost market sown up. Jet2 are dominant in the north with a package holiday/low cost airline combi, TOM/TCX have a large presence in the charter business. At some of their main bases, MON face huge competition:

EZY/Norweigian/BA from LGW
EZY from LTN
EZY/Jet2 from MAN
Jet2 from LBA (if they stay there)

Only BHX offers some sort of chance, with no low cost carrier based there (yet). It's hard to see a clear differentiation and while most people would probably instinctively prefer to travel MON v EZY/FR, the actual product isn't any better and doesn't justify higher prices.

Good luck to everyone involved with the company

Monarch does not have a future that's attractive, and its airline business will ultimately be bought for a song or there'll be a form of pre-pack.

It's tried quite a bit recently, but the question is where do you go?

quartic
 

Cabin interior

I recently flew back into LGW after we landed an Easyjet Capt came on to the flight deck to say he thought the sky interior fitted to our 737 was a huge improvement over the interior on the easyjet airbus, having said that he pointed out that the flight deck was from the ark !!:sad::sad:

Pensions will be problematic, even if the (non UK) owners offer to underwrite the deficit the regulator will not allow them to do post sale and will require the money to be paid into the PPF scheme, in most cases this means an haircut for those who have yet to draw their pensions, blame one Gordon Brown for the destruction of the final salary pension scheme.

MON has a good fan base and one suspects a lot of good slots so anyone think an offer might come?:\:\

Tea - 1- Go airlines ?

"Norn lron Businessman" and ex IAG man at the top?!

My heart sank on reading that!

ManUtd1999
Ryanair has had a 4 aircraft BHX base since 2008...
If the airport cooperated the idea was (is?) a large Midlands base there. As we all know after this date Ryanair stopped taking deliveries of new aircraft, but these are set to resume imminently.
With Monarch possibly in trouble, maybe this is an added incentive for them, they already fly to several Monarch destinations from BHX: ALC, BCN, FAO, FUE, LPA, IBZ, ACE, PMI, AGP & TFS. Further more MON destinations within the existing Ryanair network are not (yet) flown from BHX...

Skyjob
 

I would imagine that BHX would not been keen on having the bulk of their holiday traffic in the hands of one airline, especially Ryanair, it may come to that of course, i think Jet2 would be very cautious about moves into BHX for fear of route dilution, in much the way that bmibaby was.

I would have thought it was more up easyJet's street and Norwegian have shown no signs of basing or route interest North of LGW beyond some Manchester/Edinburgh services from Scandinavia

I think we are for now approaching the point of too many seats chasing too few bums or bums with not enough money to take the number of holidays they perhaps did a few years back?

Thomas Cook and Thomson are presented in the airport as well...
Hardly like Ryanair would be the only operator there catering for the needs of holiday traffic.

Further more:
easyJet flies to BHX from Belfast.
Germanwings from Hamburg and Tegel.
Turkish also comes in daily and advertises a lot inside the terminal.
None of the above cater for any holiday traffic at present in significant numbers.

If it would be up easyJet's street, would they not already have expanded into BHX in recent years when Ryanair operates full flights from there?
Rumours about Norwegian are always around.

We also fly a seasonal winter route to GNB, and I think the Swiss guys do a route from GVA although I'm not sure if that's seasonal as well.

Norwegian

I have not heard BHX mentioned for/by Norwegian either as a base or routes, in fact there has been no serious new base chatter at all, i think the last new base chatter was around 12 months ago about the now opened BCN/MAD bases.

Some on/off mutterings about Berlin/Rome, i think the latter is now very unlikely with the Easy/FR/Vueling bun fight

If you view EMA & BHX as one airport, at least from a customer perspective then it seems most needs are covered

Easy MONey?
 

Since this is a rumour network; plenty of peeps on the ground at MAN today who were under the impression that EZY could be weighing up MON as an acquisition. Now that would be interesting.

Wishful thinking I would think ...

On the face of it EZY taking over MON would make sense. easy are on pretty much all of Mons scheduled routes so would immediately increase their market share and take all their slots, and gain an instant big presence in BHX. From next summer Mon fleet is only A320/A321 so no issues with crew compatibility/retraining.

The Mon DB pension scheme liability would be an issue for easy. However, if the Mon turnaround works and Mon maintains/increases market share then easy would have to engage in a price war to squash Mon which together with the lost extra profit from the extra market share from buying in now may cost more than the scheme contributions (drip fed over many years) would. If Mon is later floated for a big investor profit easy may regret not buying in cheap now. Of course, if the turnaround doesn't work they'll pick off the remains for free, but with competition from other airlines that won't be as big a piece of the pie.

So I guess it comes down to how likely easy think the Mon turnaround will work.

How about NAS? Perfectly poised to take on EZY if they did. Though taking on a unionised airline would not be one of Kjos's favourite past times!

Rushed approach
 

An interesting concept and of course Easy did this with GO a few years back, but there would still be a lot of redundancies in back & front office staff, management and the pension problem, could any of the players be interested?

Ryanair, very unlikely, wrong fleet and adding 6-8m pax is small beer for them

Easyjet, as you say possible, same fleet,previous form, capitalise on LGW position

Norwegian, wrong timing, fleet wouldn't be an issue with both Airbus and Max on order and would at a stroke establish them as a serious player in the UK, could they afford it?

Vueing IAG funded, so money not a problem, same fleet

Jet2, would be a huge leap and MAEL could transform their maintenance, probably too big for them management wise

The pension problem is the same for all, but that can be sorted by the owners, but the regulator will not allow a drip feed from a non UK company and will force the fund into the PPF

Turn around is of course possible, but dealing with the level of reduction reported in the press* will take serious management time and the loss of staff morale would come at a time when they are trying to improve the customer experience.

Having twice faced this situation i would not wish it on anybody and a swift easyJet takeover would be best for most of Monarch's employee's

A fair bit of EZY base maintenance is carried out by monarch and they were in discussion for this to be extended to line maintenance so perhaps the engineering side is of interest to them

Any takeover is unlikely IMO but EZY would be clear favourites. Vueling is an interesting shout. It'd get them established in the UK and there's fleet commonality. They are much more low-cost though and IAG haven't shown much interest in making changes at Vueling. They seem happy enough to let them get on with it whilst IAG focus on IB/BA.

Purchasing Monarch is nothing like buying GO. Go was a serious threat to the easyjet brand and so eventually it's market share. On paper the opportunity was probably to good to miss especially given who was funding the whole thing.

If the M's have decided not to invest another sum of money again like they have done twice in the last 7 years then why would they fill the massive pension deficit of £140 - £150 million estimate if even to get a free sale?

With regards to IAG who owns Vueling with a lower cost base than Easyjet, why would they even bother far easy to jump into the hole that's left behind.

There are easier and far cheaper options.