You do appear to have a valid claim for both your outward and return flights for 400 euros per passenger per leg.

You have stated that the delays were due to the aircraft awaiting parts to be fitted. Have you got this in writing from the airline? If not that is your first job: write to the airline and ask for their detailed explanation for the delays in outward & return flights.

Once you have these details (or of you already have them in writing) then you need to complete Monarch's claim form for each passenger and per leg: https://www.dropbox.com/s/fimcgnqennoear1/EU%20Compensation%20Claim%20Form%20for%20a%20Delayed%20flight%20%281%29.pdf

You should also submit a covering letter with the completed forms stating in what timescale you would like your claim dealt. That way you can at least revert to the airline after that deadline requesting information on the progress of your claim. You could then also ratchet up the pressure on the airline to settle by issuing a notice before action (which you will probably need to do in any case) as few claims are likely to be settled in passengers' favour without issuing a court claim.

You also need to take with a large handful of salt the 'guidelines' Monarch state at the end of the form, particularly those relating to extraordinary circumstances. The reason I say this is because if you took these at face value then there would be few or no circumstances under which Monarch would be liable for delay compensation!!

For information, the Regulation is here: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32004R0261:EN:HTML

The precedent case law which provides for delay compensation is here: http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf;jsessionid=9ea7d2dc30db8747eb90ee9e4882a56ed71820340c29.e34KaxiLc3qMb40Rch0SaxuKbNn0?text=&docid=73703&pageIndex=0&doclang=en&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=617258

We were delayed 8 hours travelling from Birmingham to Bodrum. Lost a full night of our 7 day holiday (plus the morning because we didn't get to our accommodation til 3 am hence a lie in). Wouldn't use Monarch again.

We completed all the forms supplied by Monarch for our claim and received an E Mail acknowledgement but no reference number which they declined to give us. That all happened in mid November. Since then we have received nothing despite sending a polite chaser E Mail and letter asking for an update. It seems stupid they will not give a claim a reference number it would be make the claim much easier to trace.we really do not want to go to a small claims court at this stage and that action should be a last resort. What should we do next. It just goes to show how bad Monarch Customer Service really is.. Any ideas please.

Monarch are working through claims on a flight by flight basis. I understand that they, TC & Thomsons have been hit with a deluge of claims going back to 2006. It's like people have suddenly decided to claim, even though they could have done it at the time of the delay

Four Of Heats wrote:

We completed all the forms supplied by Monarch for our claim and received an E Mail acknowledgement but no reference number which they declined to give us. That all happened in mid November. Since then we have received nothing despite sending a polite chaser E Mail and letter asking for an update. It seems stupid they will not give a claim a reference number it would be make the claim much easier to trace.we really do not want to go to a small claims court at this stage and that action should be a last resort. What should we do next. It just goes to show how bad Monarch Customer Service really is.. Any ideas please.

Did you follow the advice I gave in my response to your initial post? Did you set a reasonable timescale for the airline to respond? Did you issue a Letter before Action or start legal proceedings after the expiry of any notice period in the LBA which at least will get the airline's attention and get them to follow the court's timetable rather than their own?

Sunaddict wrote:

...even though they could have done it at the time of the delay :que

Even though they have had since 19 November 2009 to claim!