Never go longhaul with Monarch

Advantages: It gets you to your destination
Disadvantages: Cons customers, horrendous customer service, bad food, too many to list here

...the flight time home/what time we'd be picked up from the hotel etc. He then added that he is well aware of the 'con' that all us English people are pulling saying we were allowed an extra 5kg luggage allowance and that it won't wash here so expect to pay £70 at the airport. We said to him that we had spoke to people at Monarch before we left the UK and they had informed us that we were allowed an extra 5kg luggage allowance. He rolled is eyes and said "there is what you have been told, and there is what is printed on your ticket". We had been staying at an AI hotel and hadn't eaten out through the holiday because the food at the hotel was fine but we had planned to treat ourselves on our last night to go and have a meal out and we had saved the last of our money for this. Due to the luggage allowance farce we instead spent the last...

missixty 05.11.2007 · Read review
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Review of Monarch Airlines

FLY MONARCH

Advantages: excellent service, staff, food
Disadvantages: hard to get out of seats when everybody's food trays are down

...Well, my holiday to Zakynthos (Zante) has given me plenty to write about over the next few days! After telling you about my holiday as a whole, it's time to give the airline that got me there and brought me back, the Simmer treatment... And since they insisted on bringing me back, my review may not be too good! ;o) ~*~ CHECKING IN & BOARDING Where the excitement and anticipation begins for anybody about to jet off on their holidays!! Since my family has developed a policy of getting to the airport extremely early, we were treated to an brilliantly short check-in queue at Manchester Airport. But, I sincerely doubt that this lasted for very long. Monarch insist on having numerous desks, all labelled as check-in for 'All Monarch Flights'. I'd imagine that as the day goes on, this could get extremely inconvenient, especially...

Simmer 17.08.2002 · Read review
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Review of Monarch Airlines

Monarch Airline-Low Cost Airline

Advantages: Value for money
Disadvantages: none

...This is another low cost airline which I have used on a number of times and I have found reasonable in cost. The website is very easy to use and informative to the costings of the various add-ons. The staff are very friendly when you get to the airport and always want to please. Recently when my daughter flew to Malaga she found that her luggage was missing so when she spoke to a member of Monarch Airlines in Malaga they were straight away on to the problem and everything got sorted in less than 24 hours and they personally delivered her suitcase to where she was staying. When we booked my daughter in it was a little confusing at Gatwick to know which queue to go to apart from that they were very quick at the booking in desk. The staff were very helpfull and even though it was very busy they still were very polite...

ruth1957 05.09.2009 · Read review
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Review of Monarch Airlines

Monarch Not

Advantages: Good Food
Disadvantages: No Legroom

...I came to be flying by Monarch Airlines after booking a holiday to Egypt with Cosmos (both these reviews to come later). As you can imagine it was quite a long journey departing from Manchester at 10.00 am and arriving in Egypt at about 5.30 p.m. our time. To do my review I’ve broken it down into the following sections the plane including legroom, the staff, in-flight meals etc, and entertainment. PLANE INCLUDING LEGROOM Outbound Flight **** **** **** On the outbound and returning flight we were in an Airbus A300-603R, my initial thought of the plane was that it was quite small looking and when I got inside I was not disappointed in spite of the fact the plane seats 361 people. We were in row 10 I say we were in row 10 meaning we were squashed into the row it seemed that legroom had been given over to an extra row...

SMAGGS76 18.06.2002 · Read review
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Manky money grabbing Monarch

Advantages: not many
Disadvantages: quite a few

...Monarch airlines and the kids and I were looking forward to our trip to Italy flying out of Gatwick airport. Earlier in the year we had used Ryan air to fly to Rome and had enjoyed a cheap and cheerful flight. Having booked through a package travel company I had not had any choice in the airline and my experiences of charter airlines have been limited but usually good. Because we booked though a travel company I'm unable to offer an opinion on the quality of the booking process with Monarch although flights can be booked direct from their website. Check in was efficient helped by the fact that we arrived a full hour before the advised check in time and there was no one ahead of us in the queue, there was an initial problem with our seats as we were placed in a row where no children were allowed however this was quickly resolved...

atticusuk 05.09.2005 · Read review
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Review of Monarch Airlines

Monarch, the first class choice.

Advantages: First class , eccelent food and service.
Disadvantages: maybe a little more leg room would be good

...With having family living in Spain I am a frequent flyer and decided to look around for the best airline for me and my partner, With so many offering cheap flights to mainland Spain these days I feared it would not be an easy job. I Started by looking for the cheapest options to begin with and soon my partner and I found one that seemed to be a good price and took them up on there flight offer. After many hitches and poor service with this airline we decided to always fly with a reputable company in the future. Our next flight was 3 months later and while searching the internet I came across an advert for Monarch Airlines, They have a very informative website and easy to understand booking facilities online so we decided to give them a try and got tickets for £150 each return, and so glad we where too! The service we found from...

Dawnlb 09.08.2003 · Read review
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Review of Monarch Airlines

The Strand Palace Hotel

Advantages: Central location, clean
Disadvantages: Food, rooms

...We stayed at this hotel in London a little over a month ago now for two nights, we chose this hotel mainly because of the central location and because it was only a ten minuite walk from the show we had booked to go too. Check in was very quick - About ten minuites and the staff at the reception seemed very friendly. My first thoughts on the hotel was that it looked really clean and that it was nicely decorated and it looked modern. I was a little dissapointed with our room as it was very small and basic, our room had a double bed, tea and coffee making facilities, a tv with satellite and a small, basic en suite bathroom with a shower. The views from our room very very poor - A block of offices which made our room dark as they were so close. The hotel has two bars and two resturaunts, the bars were again nicely decorated...

kate44 03.05.2007 · Read review
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Review of The Strand Palace Hotel, London

Monarch Airlines - Only If You Have To!

Advantages: Part of Package deals, new Aircraft
Disadvantages: Like being aboard a cattle truck

...Having recently returned from a trip to Egypt and having the pleasure? of using Monarch Airlines i thought i would share my observations with you, to perhaps make your trip easier. Firstly my outward journey was delayed by 21 hours - I realise this can happen to any Airline, although certainly having limited Aircraft available on stand-by did not help the situation. What I did find hard to take was the lack of information given out by the Airline via the groud Handling Agency. Yes I was put up in a Hotel overnight but there was no sign of any sort of apology. Also handing out £4.00 vouchers for breakfast, at Airport prices, will hardly allow you to overdo it! Once on the plane it was really like being on a cattle truck. The plane appeared quite new but legroom was minimal to say the least. During the 4 hour 50 minute flight we...

murky5 19.08.2005 · Read review
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Don't fly with Monarch

Advantages: ok food and entertainment
Disadvantages: Uncomfortable and Punctuality

...I Recently flew with Monarch airline to Gran Canaria - Playa del Ingles for my first time and found it to be ok. The plane was a bowing 757. It was a very uncomfortable journey there and back especially for my fiancé who’s 6ft 1 as you had hardly any leg room. The Plane had to many seats in it, which is what made it have hardly any leg room and made it very uncomfortable. This flight was 4 hours long going to Gran Canaria and 3 and a half hours coming back to Gatwick. Our flight was delayed two hours going to Gran Canaria and an hour delayed coming back to Gatwick so that was a big downside to our holiday. For children under 2 yrs old they give you a small belt to attach on to your belt, after they reach the age of two they can have their own seat for a price. The food was ok and the airhostess’s were helpful...

Toady 27.09.2001 · Read review
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Review of Monarch Airlines

Time spent with a Monarch

Advantages: Cost and friendly service
Disadvantages: very narrow aisles

...Having had a bit of a nightmare holiday experience last year with Travel City Direct (see review - incompetence of TCD) while trying to get to Florida, I was a little alarmed, when my better half came home one day and told me that she had booked our holiday for this year - to Florida again. She eventually talked me round by saying that this year we will have the holiday we should have had last year, the clincher was that we were flying from our regional airport (not Gatwick) and that we were flying with Monarch Airlines. Finally accepting that this was a done deal and I could do nothing about it, I started to warm to the idea of another Florida holiday. I started then to speak to friends who had used Monarch and also read the reviews on Ciao. I started to get worried again, too many reports of cramped seating and poor service...

barney3 07.08.2005 · Read review
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Review of Monarch Airlines