Monarch

[ujpest doza]

Just booked a flydrive through Airtours and the plane is a Monarch one.

Anyone used Monarch in the past 12 months?

Service and comfort on Airtours/Mytravel is usually pretty good for a charter, can i expect similar on Monarch?

[abbeyvillas]

We have flown Monarch before & is pretty much the same as most other Charters. They seem to have various sizes of plane so there can be some differences in facilities e.g. seat back t.v. or overhead screens, seating formation, W.C. locations but we have had no complaints.
Jeanette

[eagleydo]

Flew Monarch the first time we went to Florida 6 years ago, it was ok, cheap, good food, nice crew but small aisles(so they hostesses were almost sat on you as they dished out meals etc.),overhead screens which were not the greatest(recommend portable dvd player).We booked through Airtours on that occassion. We said never again though and booked BA and Virgin afterwards, little bit more in price but more comfort.
This year we flew Monarch again, not to Florida but to Egypt. End result was never ever again, crew were great but it was the most uncomfortable flight I have ever had and watching an advert for a holiday abroad for one and a half hours is not my idea of good entertainment for a homeward bound journey. Sorry to sound negative and hope your experience is a lot better than ours, I think they use better planes for Florida and ones that have more than one toilet for all non first class passengers.

[dawn]

We usually fly Monarch, and not had a problem. I would recommend booking Premium if you can for more comfort and seat back TVs etc.

[Dopeysfriend]

I think it depends where you fly from what kind of plane you get. I flew a couple of years ago from Newcastle and vowed never again. The seat pitch was very small and coming back my husband had even less room because he ended up in a seat where the plane slopes inwards. We are not big people either. Hubby is 5'7 and I'm 5'4. Average build.

Christine

[domster]

They are pretty much as good as the Mytravel setup. Same sort of food and service. If you can afford to pay the extra £175 it is always worth it to upgrade to premium. Bigger seats and more room.

[KevinT]

We flew with Monarch from Newcastle to Sanford last October and are booked with them for next
June. (No other choice from N/C direct)
Monarch generally use an Airbus 300 on this route which is a nice plane. Seat pitch was reasonable but not great (probably around 29") I'm 5'11" and only just had movement room for my legs if I didn't use the seat pocket to store anything. (but having travelled with Excel in the past 29" seemed almost generous!!)
Return flight was delayed around 4 hours [msnsad]

[Nielsen]

We travelled with Monarch in June/July of 2006 and had the worst experience I have ever come across flying long or short haul. I would NEVER fly with them again and would gladly pay £££ to fly with someone else. There is no way 3 adults can sit without leaning out over their armrest and thereby partly blocking the aisle. The crew does not seen to care - probably heard it all before so it just falls on deaf ears - even with upgraded food it was dire. Just to mention a few issues we had on both the outbound and the inbound flight. [gun]
Never mind the 7 hour outbound delay including stopover in Canada !! [msnmad][msncry]
TOM

[Robert5988]

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Never mind the 7 hour outbound delay including stopover in Canada !! [/quote]
Presumably a long haul aircraft was out of commission and you were put put on a 737 or similar - which doesn't have the range for UK - Florida. That seems to be happening quite often with charter airlines.

To my mind one of the biggest disadvantages of charters is that, with a limited long haul fleeet, they have no flexibility if an aircraft has technical problems and long delays are commonplace.

[nicklangdon]

We had a monarch plane in may last year and my only gripe is the lack of legroom in economy -on the way back we got to the airport early to book seats with extra legroom as premium was full!
Have to say i would only travel with them again if i could upgrade to premium seats for comfort.

Our first holiday was with my travel and the flight home was delayed (such a shame to be stuck in florida for another day! [msnsmile] we were put up in a fantastic hotel (better than we could afford!)they had a DC10 already sat at the airport and flew a crew in for it.Maybe we got lucky but i thought we were looked after very nicely when you hear some peoples horror stories.

Ali