MONARCH AIRLINES   Passenger Reviews and Customer Trip Reports

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MONARCH AIRLINES customer review :  15 September 2009 by E Fryer   (UK)

Trip to Florida for 7 people from Manchester. On way out and on way back the check in opened after stated booking time. The food was poor on the whole but the meal on the way back was acceptable for airline food. The service was the slowest I have ever seen on any airline and was totally dysfunctional. Trays were not collected from travellers for far too long after the meal. The tea and coffee was not offered for 30-40 minutes after the meal and the staff went completely past our row so we had to wait ages for her to come back and request a coffee. It was frustrating that we had paid for meals and drinks with our meals but our 12 year old was only offered tea or coffee. Not many children drink this type of beverage and no other was offered. We were not informed in advance that children do not get drinks with their meals. Without going into all the finite details the staff certainly need training because they were slow to serve and collect and did not seem to know what they had in store for purchased beverages, duty free etc. Staff on way back were pleasant to people though. For a transatlantic flight the tv screens were insufficient and could not be seen from our seats about midway up the plane. They announced that we would see the same movies on return as on the way out and when I asked about this she said they often make this type of mistake but could not say if they could solve it. I wish I had believed the comments on this site before we booked but thought it would be OK. Don't say you have not been warned.

MONARCH AIRLINES customer review :  15 September 2009 by K Ross   (UK)

Gatwick to Orlando. Monarch's fare was some two hundred pounds cheaper than BA or Virgin but you get what you pay for and to be honest, unless you desperately need to save that two hundred pounds this airline is worth giving a wide berth! Monarch run Airbus A330 on this route which are configured for maximum density seating. Economy is a 3-3-3 configuration. I am 5'10" and was pleased that my knees did not touch the back of the seat in front but I am a hefty chap and found the width of the seat crippling. I spilled over both sides of the seat which was embarrassing for me and no doubt, annoying for the person flying next to me. Anyone over 16 stone (224lbs), in my opinion will suffer the same. The isles are only the width of a seat too making moving up and down the plane extremely difficult and impossible when the trolleys are out. No seat back TV's only blurred drop down TV screens from the roof. Monarch operate pre-allocated seating which means you have to sit where you are put! They would not entertain any requests to vary or move seats outbound or inbound. As I said at the beginning though, they were considerably cheaper than the schedule airlines. I have travelled cross Atlantic with all the UK airlines now and the best economy seat in my opinion is the BA on the Boeing 777.

MONARCH AIRLINES customer review :  15 September 2009 by Peter Spence   (Spain)

Monarch Airlines appear incapable of understanding the fact that passengers who have paid for extra legroom seats are not happy when, as soon as the door is closed, the cabin crew allow all and sundry to move forward into unoccupied extra legroom seats without charge. The catering is getting worse and worse. On one flight they had completely run out of everything by the time they reached me in row 5! Also, although the menu is supposedly changed every 3 months, the main meal was pork sausage and mash inbound to the UK for the last 3 months and is now pork sausage and mash outbound from the UK for the current 3 months and the only other non-veg hot dish, bacon panini in both directions, has been unchanged for years! I was also informed by a Monarch cabin crew member that they now carry catering for only 20% of the booked passenger load. Perhaps if instead of holding down the price and reducing quantity and quality they were to increase the meal price, serve a decent meal at a fair price and realise that their are other meats other than pork, their catering sales figures may improve. With the abolition of the in-flight entertainment, newspapers, hot towels and the uncertainty of being able to get anything to eat, in my opinion Monarch have now lost the advantages over BA euro-traveller that they enjoyed over the past few years. Monarch are still better than the low-cost carriers but they have slipped lot in my estimation recently.

MONARCH AIRLINES customer review :  10 September 2009 by Mark Rouse   (UK)

We have just returned from Spain using a scheduled Monarch return flight. Outgoing flight was on 'old' 757. The interior looked tired and the leg room was non-existent, fortunately I had booked extra leg room seat due. The service was very good with drinks, snacks and meals, and the flight was on time. Our return flight was on an A321, new aircraft, newer interior and I had managed to book all 3 of us extra leg room £17.50 each, worth the extra. Lot's of room! I am 6ft and I could stretch my legs, we were very impressed with this flight, room, meals etc. So overall thumbs up for Monarch, but please either get rid of the 757 or update the interior!

MONARCH AIRLINES customer review :  10 September 2009 by Jill Staines   (UK)

Luton to Gibraltar return. Excellent extra leg room seats selected when we booked six months earlier. Checked in online for the outbound flight & quick & easy bag drop. Flight left on time despite 2 people not showing up at departure gate & having to offload their luggage. Good cabin staff - bacon pannini was like cardboard with no flavour. Long queue at check-in for return flight. Just one person on Vantage club check-in & one (who told us she didn't feel well!) trying to book in the rest of us. However, flight left on time & chicken meal wasn't too bad. We would fly Monarch scheduled again.

MONARCH AIRLINES customer review :  9 September 2009 by J Taverner   (UK)

BHX to PMI, bank holiday Saturday. Online check in a breeze. However, for return check in there was no sign as to where the fast drop was - after asking it was where the vantage members check in.

MONARCH AIRLINES customer review :  3 September 2009 by I Laffferty   (UK)

Gatwick - Dalaman. Scheduled time of departure 0720, eventually departed about 2130. We originally pushed back on time, but returned to stand with a technical fault, after about 15 mins we had to leave the aircraft,and were given food/drink vouchers and told that next information would be at 1200. At this time we were taken to the Hilton hotel and given a room for the day, and an evening meal. The only positives from the day was the fact that Monarch kept us informed as to what was happening and looked after us - and later flying out on the A330 which has a lot more legroom and space than the A300 .

MONARCH AIRLINES customer review :  31 August 2009 by Ronald Plenderleith   (UK)

Regular flyer with Monarch. My wife was taken ill during last visit to Spain, in order to make an early return rang the Monarch help desk in Spain. They wanted £87 each to bring forward my wife and my ticket some three days. BMI Baby gave us single tickets for less than the admin charge required by Monarch. Be careful if you are booking online and tick the button "Do you wish to save £10 on your next Monarch Flight" - your full banking details are passed to a company called Shopping Discounts and they will deduct £10 each month from your bank account. I and my family will never have anything to do with Monarch Airlines again.

MONARCH AIRLINES customer review :  30 August 2009 by P Constantinides   (UK)

Birmingham - Larnaca . I thought the flight was good, aircraft was clean and staff pleasant. The price was reasonable, and I will fly with them again. The only problem we had was there was no tv's on the flight there, but that was because the plane we were meant to have (one with tv's) had a huge delay so they got us another Monarch plane which had no tv's.

MONARCH AIRLINES review :  18 August 2009 by S Backford   (UK)

You can book a seat on many airlines (Emirates, KLM etc) for free. Monarch charge you £18 a seat and when you don't get what you asked for, they say "seats cannot be guaranteed". In other words, it's a rip off. So beware, don't pay for a seat because you won't get it, or a refund either.

MONARCH AIRLINES review :  13 August 2009 by John Foster   (UK)

Have travelled Birmingham to Faro on several occasions and always been satisfied with overall Monarch performance. Planes are new and clean. Check in is always efficient, polite and friendly. Cabin crew obliging, efficient and friendly.

MONARCH AIRLINES review :  10 August 2009 by G Jones   (UK)

Beware of Monarch's website when booking seats. The website is cleverly designed so that bookers can't distinguish seat types, and can mistakenly book extra leg rooms at seats at a cost £30 per return trip. This is very expensive when booking for 5 and there's no refund policy. The colour blind are advised not to use Monarch's web-site.