I fail to see how the link can be described as being 'irrelevant', when it is exactly the scenario Sanji was posting about. It is 100% relevant to this thread.

To put things into perspective BA have many aircraft that are 20+ years old and American Airlines have a lot that are 25+ years old. If an aircraft is well looked after age is not a problem.

Pippy wrote:

I fail to see how the link can be described as being 'irrelevant', when it is exactly the scenario Sanji was posting about. It is 100% relevant to this thread.

Because it was a different airline that was involved in the incident to the one Sanji was talking about. I seem to remember Qantas had a similar incident, but that is irrelevant as well!

Sunaddict wrote:

I did read that Monarch were getting some more aircraft next year, and the wet leased were only filling the gap left when they picked up some BMI baby routes?

Did you read my previous posts?
They knew when they sold me the flight in May that the aircraft was going to be a wet - lease plane, so don't you think that they could have mentioned it. ?
They are/were using Lithuanian companies with none of the crew speaking fluent English, which is a bit different to being bumped onto another British company like Thomson or Thomas Cook.

They entered into a contract and have a duty to get me from A to B.
But they also have a duty to provide the level of service that I (and others) expect when booking a Monarch flight, and that does not include being on a 23 year old plane with nobody being able to speak English that was comprehensible, a dilapidated interior and a reduction of on-board services - and being able to flout the EU directive and not informing me as soon as possible of the change of aircraft and the carrier.

The flight tracking records prove that they knew it wasn't going to be a Monarch aircraft, so please don't make excuses for them, because while ever people do make excuses, they'll continue to treat the customer like poo.

Sanji

You are right Sanji, it is a disgrace when they knew they would be using third world planes.
I will not be flying "Monarch" again.

Not being a very good flyer myself,I can sympathise with you. Glad you arrived safely and I hope you can enjoy the rest of your holiday without worrying too much about the return journey. I won't be booking with Monarch any time soon.

I would imagine that a lesson has probably been learned by Monarch here in terms of public perception but we need to be clear that wet leasing is a standard practice in the airline business and frankly most carriers at some time or other will do so. As the aviation market opens up, more and more countries are able to put in successful bids for wet leasing duties. Perhaps a bit more care needs to be undertaken when considering who should carry out such contractual negotiations.

Dont be fooled with the aircraft age although I do understand that this particular 737 was somewhat unpleasing on the eye and in terms of comfort on board. As an example however the average age of the Monarch fleet is 15 years and they have aircraft fast approaching 25 years old. As always it is"each to their own"and personally having flown Monarch and on Monarch aircraft I would never fly them again. Cramped and uncomfortable and broken was my experience and again yes this was on Monarch aircraft. Like everything else if one is not happy then use alternatives but need to always bear in mind that in a tight market airlines including Monarch have the right to sub lease/wet lease/ or indeed swap!

At the start of this thread it ws reported that a bog standard e mail was received from the carrier. I believe that as a matter of course an email is sent by this operator (Monarch) if any given flight is to be wet leased. You may find that if no such message has appeared in your in box it may have gone to junk mail.

Nivsy

I can assure you that I have not received any email from Monarch that has gone into my junk box.
I received an email from them on the 10th September entitled 'Important, not long before you fly- which gave me all the speil about hand luggage dimensions.

The second email which I received was on Friday afternoon on the 14th September, 2 days before I flew to Malaga, informing me of the change of aircraft, but failing as per the EU directive to inform me of the carrier.

Whilst I have been here in Spain, I received another email from Monarch entitled 'Not long before you fly', again with all the speil about hand luggage....-I received it on Monday the 24th which is half way through my holiday, so what the hell are they playing at sending me the same email as I received on the 10th September?

Sanji

nivsy wrote:

I would imagine that a lesson has probably been learned by Monarch here in terms of public perception but we need to be clear that wet leasing is a standard practice in the airline business and frankly most carriers at some time or other will do so. As the aviation market opens up, more and more countries are able to put in successful bids for wet leasing duties. Perhaps a bit more care needs to be undertaken when considering who should carry out such contractual negotiations.

Like everything else if one is not happy then use alternatives but need to always bear in mind that in a tight market airlines including Monarch have the right to sub lease/wet lease/ or indeed swap.

Nivsy

I don't have any problem with the practises of wet-leasing-I've been flying long enough to know it goes on at various times, but on this occasion Monarch have been very deceitful when they knew months ago that the plane wasn't going to be a Monarch aircraft and they waited until 2 days before I flew to send me an email, so the option of using an alternative was never an option, because I and others had no reason to believe it wasn't going to be a Monarch plane until the last fews days before departure.

Monarch have shown a total disregard towards their passengers by leasing an old crate and still charging prices that are not exactly cheap -people shouldn't be expected to pay for a flight and not receive the level of service that they would expect from Monarch and by all means lease, but lease a decent plane.

This year I bought a pad/tablet and most of the bars I frequent have wi-fi, but previously I never logged into my account from abroad to pick up any emails and I guess others don't either.

Monarch have sent me another email which I've just read, and again 2 days before I fly home - informing me of the change of aircraft for the flight home, it is more or less like the one I posted in my opening post, but this time in brackets they've added (Small Planet)
So, that confirms I'm coming home on the same old crate - but that does not change things regarding how they have treat their customers - and how they have flouted the EU directive.
I find some comfort in knowing that I'm not alone in being disgusted with Monarch and I will be pursuing the matter when I get home.
Sometimes the customer is right.

Sanji

Sanji wrote:

Sunaddict wrote:

I did read that Monarch were getting some more aircraft next year, and the wet leased were only filling the gap left when they picked up some BMI baby routes?

Did you read my previous posts?
They knew when they sold me the flight in May that the aircraft was going to be a wet - lease plane, so don't you think that they could have mentioned it. ?
They are/were using Lithuanian companies with none of the crew speaking fluent English, which is a bit different to being bumped onto another British company like Thomson or Thomas Cook.

They entered into a contract and have a duty to get me from A to B.
But they also have a duty to provide the level of service that I (and others) expect when booking a Monarch flight, and that does not include being on a 23 year old plane with nobody being able to speak English that was comprehensible, a dilapidated interior and a reduction of on-board services - and being able to flout the EU directive and not informing me as soon as possible of the change of aircraft and the carrier.

The flight tracking records prove that they knew it wasn't going to be a Monarch aircraft, so please don't make excuses for them, because while ever people do make excuses, they'll continue to treat the customer like poo.

Sanji

Yes, I did read your previous posts!! Where did I make excuses for them? I merely pointed out a fact. As aircraft are rotated regularly they often don't know exactly which aircraft will be used for which route, until a day or two before the flight. That is not an excuse either.

Qman wrote:

You are right Sanji, it is a disgrace when they knew they would be using third world planes.
I will not be flying "Monarch" again.

Since when was Lithuania a third world country??

I asked if you had read my posts, because you repeated what I had already said regarding Monarch having to wet-lease because they have picked up some of the routes left by Bmibaby- which I already knew.
I don't need to be educated regarding the principles of dry-leasing, damp-leasing or wet-leasing and the last time I flew on a plane in the same condition, and it looks like it's going to be the same old crate back on Monday, it was 30 years ago and it was called Dan Air!

As far as not knowing which aircraft is going to be operating a flight, well it's not as though this situation is something 'out of the blue '- and they haven't been rotating the aircraft operating the EMA- Malaga or EMA - Alicante routes, and it still does not alter the fact that they went into EMA with new routes and no planes, and didn't inform their customers of the situation or naming the carrier.

I've flown with Monarch many times from Manchester, so I do know what to expect from their service.

Sanji

As you can gather from this post, I made it back from Malaga on the old crate.
The journey was absolutely horrible, I’ve never been so glad to get off a plane, and I got off that plane with a banging headache, and I’m not surprised because it was like sitting in an overcrowded oven for 3 hours.
I wasn’t impressed when the aircraft was manoeuvring around Malaga airport on the way to the runway, the noises coming from the aircraft were quite scary, some bloke said, "those brakes don’t sound too good" and the noises definitely weren’t the ‘normal’ noises you hear.

One poster on Monarch’s FB page had commented how hot the plane had been coming back from Alicante and on the outbound journey I didn’t notice it being hot, but maybe that was because the plane had been sat all night at EMA and hadn’t done a journey beforehand.
It was uncomfortably hot, everyone was stripping clothes off and at one point I could smell aviation fuel mixed into the air flow circulating the cabin.

The cabin crew outside of the plane are probably very nice people, I don’t want to get personal to individuals, but I’m sorry to say they were just like robots speaking to each other in Italian, with no people’s skill whatsoever, so they appeared as being pig ignorant.
I ordered two coffees and they were just like treacle, I had to put 4 mini cartons of milk into mine just to make it palatable and this cooled the coffee down into a disgusting cardboard ‘mug’ of sludge. Apparently it was a mixture of ground coffee beans and powered (instant) coffee and the coffee beans just floated on the top of the slick.

My OH, who is a black coffee drinker and who can tackle the various strong black coffees in Spain, even he took one look at it and said ‘ what the xxxx is this’? Consequently after a few sips, we had just wasted £5.
I wish I had access to my camera, but under these cramped conditions I couldn’t get to the camera or video in my bag between my feet, because when I let my tray down to place the coffee on it, the back of the seat which is hidden when the tray is in the upright position, it was filthy with the contents of someone’s meal or vomit stuck to it.

The emergency drill was done at break neck speed and according to my video it lasted from start to finish 96 seconds, and as a regular flyer having watched this many times, half of it you could understand simply because you’ve seen it before, and for a first time flyer, you’d probably think what the eck was all that about?

Study the safety card? Well that wasn’t in English either, so if you like ‘paint by pictures’ diagrams you’d spend the entire flight figuring out which idiot did these cards.
Life jackets? Don’t expect a light or a whistle, because on these relics there isn’t one, neither any mention of not inflating the lifejacket before exiting the aircraft…..and floor lighting to direct you to an emergency exit. ???

The plane has emergency exit doors at the back and front, and a window/door in the middle – unbelievable that in front of the middle exit there is no actual gangway/space – there are seats to squeeze by, and on one side the seat is butt up to the door and protruding across it….so, if you’re not built like Olive Oly in a panic …. forget it.!

Remember, according to Monarch, this is a carefully chosen airline and providing the same service as you’d expect on their fleet. IMO What an utter and complete load of bull
I came across an article in the Guardian newspaper and one thing I noticed was this….

All passengers due to travel on one of the wet-lease aircraft have been notified before travelling and have been given options to change their flight, at no additional cost, if they do not want to travel."

Maybe whoever said that to the Guardian reporter, they had better inform the person(s) replying on their FB page, because when I asked about changing the scheduled ZB flight to Manchester, I was told there would be charges (it’s still there in black and white on FB) and still they are quoting for ZB flights £35 per person each way, plus any addition price difference of the flight.

I did a dummy booking on the day before we flew and they were charging over £600 to travel on this old crate from EMA and still pretending it was a Monarch flight- yes in name only – it’s like buying a crappy TV full of plastic from Taiwan and being able to stick a Sony badge on it and call it a Sony TV.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/sep/30/monarch-airline-upgrade-customer-complaints

If I wasn’t so angry, I’d laugh at the sign on the steps up to the aircraft saying ‘Step up to lounge luxury’.
That’s after they had made us trek ( young and old) on the outskirts of EMA to reach the plane at 7 am and the first thing you see was a broken/missing seat, frayed carpet and sour faced cabin crew.
Jaysus, this experience makes Mickey O’Leary look premium quality.
Here's a little video I've made.

http://youtu.be/wEm5ORj_Tuk

Sanji x

Just watched the video you posted.
If it wasn’t so serious it would be funny. This is supposed to be a safety briefing.
On a plane flying mainly Brits it really ought to be in good English.
By someone who actually speaks good English!
Monarch should be spoken to by the appropriate aircraft safety authorities.

There’s another thread on HT called “Are Monarch really so bad?”
I think everyone now knows the answer.
NO – Monarch are actually WORSE than bad.

Thanks Bill for your reply.
Yes, the safety briefing is a disgrace, it falls short of what 'British' airlines normally demonstrate - maybe they need to buy the video of the Thomson kids, IMO, that was the best safety video ever made, the kids kept everyone's attention and got the message across.
The more I watch my video, the more I understand what's she is saying. I was thinking about having a ciggy on the plane, there were ashtrays in the armrests and nobody told me that I couldn't smoke.

Having taken note of the gap to the emergency door/window, I decided that if (god forbid) I needed to make my way to an emergency exit, it wasn't going to be the middle exit route to squeeze passed a row of seats.

My video will be attached to a letter of facts that I will be composing over the next few days, and copies will be posted to the various authorities, facts that cannot be disputed by any supporter of Monarch.

I used to like Monarch, I preferred the food on their fleet, especially when Thomson went into the Aldo Zilli pasta, rocket salad and feta cheese mode a few years ago.
Brand name is important, not everyone goes for the cheapest and I wouldn't call Monarch a low-cost airline, I personally would place them in the middle of the road.

There are several reasons why people are drawn towards a certain Airline and it's not always just about the price - IE; availability from your local airport, flight times, destination, the type of aircraft in the airline’s fleet, entertainment and services on board, reliability - and lastly (but by no means being less important), safety and comfort (seat pitch).

Monarch wet -leased on the cheapo and didn't care a flying fig about their customers, they seem to have adopted the mentality of getting pax from A to B and securing the routes left by BmiBaby before anybody else got in there, and that's all that mattered to them.

Wet -leasing old crates on the cheapo has been PR disaster and whether they can salvage their reputation after this summer's fiasco, it remains to be seen.
The general public are fickle things and when the new planes arrive, which will hopefully reduce the wet-leasing, some will forget about how they were treat this summer...and other's won't !

Sanji

Hi Sanji I watched your video and had absolutely no idea what was being said - which is pretty appauling maybe a link to Monard HO should be sent to them asking them to decipher

Pinky

Thanks for the video Sanji, it certainly proves your point about the safety aspect on your flight