How did you find out about the changes? my son is booked on a Monarch flight from Manchester and I have just been on Olympic Holidays website and there is no Monarch flight available from Manchester, this is very worrying !

I cant get a flight from birmingham next year!!!

What do you expect with the charter airline with the worst reviews on the internet.I would rather walk to Goa than get on a Monarch flight

Papa

I second that Papa

ShirleyV
I could be wrong but I think it may be a problem with the Olympic website.
I've been looking at the Olympic website for holidays to Goa for November 2008 & Feb 2009 (from Gatwick) and it's showing 'no flights'.
I did speak to one of their advisors who said there WERE flights available on the days I was looking at.
I then sked him to speak to their technical people as I believed their website was not working properly.
I also emailed them (didn't get a reply) but I don't think they've fixed it.
I'm not prepared to book over the phone as I like to see flight timings and prices of accommodation in front of me (rather than being told over the phone) before I decide.

I've looked at the Monarch charter website and they DO have flights from Gatwick and they DO have flights from Manchester for the 2008/09 season.

Of course, it may be that Olympic are no longer using Monarch for their Goa holidays.
There's certainly been a lot of negative reports about Monarch and the delays they've had over the 2007/08 season so it wouldn't be that much of a surprise.

From papa:

What do you expect with the charter airline with the worst reviews on the internet.I would rather walk to Goa than get on a Monarch flight

When we flew with Monarch (Nov 2007 & Feb 2008) their in-flight magazine mentioned some award they'd won as 'best ????' (can't remember what it was now).
Personally, I see flying with Monarch as a 'means to an end' - the 'end' being 3 lovely weeks in Goa.

Polly

Would prefer not to have the charter option but given the price I an handle it for a few hours

Its the Sunday flight from Gatwick that has gone- they wrote to us to tell us, we have 21 days to decide whether we want it or not.

I would rather walk to Goa than get on a Monarch flight

That comment really made me laugh
Yes they are very crammed and the planes look about a 100 years old, but as Polly quite rightly said "they are a means to an end" and I agree with that. As long as you book the extra leg room with Monarch you will be fine, then they arent any worse than the Thomsons flight.

and they must be better than BA!

No no no! They do not give your luggage a separate holiday trip, completely free, like BA does! Oh the frills of flying BA!

With Monarch you do get to see the world, apart from Bahrain, I've been to Abu Dhabi. Cyprus many times and my favourite springtime in Azerbaijan.

The last few times took 15 hours to return,I will never,never,never travel with them again.

I'll be walking behind Papa, I presume he knows the way

Yes, we enjoyed a visit to Baku one time (temp. just above freezing !) Monarch just puts on the flights, and sells blocks of seats to lots of tour companies both big and small. Also, with there only being two major players on the High St now, with all the takeovers and whatnot, Id be very cautious about thinking you have booked the flight you want for next season. The companies will change airports, flight times etc ,to fill planes and tailor things to suit themselves, so just because you have booked a certain time and departure airport, it's quite feasable much nearer the time, to find it being altered to suit them, and you will just have to either accept it or cancel your booking, and look elsewhere They are busy doing that at present with lots of peoples summer holidays, My daughters family were told by First Choice last month that their daytime flights to Turkey from Edinburgh had been changed to night flights from Glasgow, the choice, accept or cancel and look elsewhere, of course by that time, all other deals were long gone. Alan

Whether you travel charter or otherwise, the point is it appears that holidays to Goa next season ( and for some charter is the easiest option) are going to be harder to come by if they're already cutting flights back in April.

I can see for Brits' that things might change regarding charters.

Because of the last minute bargain sales (as low as £179 inc accom') and bad press it will probably mean that charter companies in UK will just concentrate on more profitable routes and maybe Goa isn't one of them. I have heard that a few charter companies want to scale down because it's not worth dealing with all the complaints. One of the 'biggies' is ready to pull out is the latest gossip amongst the bigger resorts/hotels and there are a lot of worried businessmen in Goa right now.

Personally I DO NOT wish to travel by charter ever again to Goa. You get what you pay for! And frankly the standards of seating are poor indeed.

I'm considering going in Nov' for a month by Emirates via Dubai to Mumbai and then down to Goa BUT.... I'll wait for a month or so before i book because from what I've been hearing there's going to be big changes in Goa (probably all talk and baksheesh!) but I would not book anything right now until we find out what the Govenment spins out at the end of season.

Make sure you know what the 'Terms and Conditions' of your booking are as the charter companies will no doubt be making some changes at last minute next season.

I'm going scheduled with Jet via Mumbai. I know it's more hassle but when the price to fly in luxury with jet works out at over £ 500 less than a flight on the same day with Monarch via Bahrain there was just no comparison.

On another note....Olympic do appear to have a problem with their site. been like that about 2 weeks but they are still selling Monarch flights and hols to Goa. Friend of mine just been quoted nearly £1400 flight only for 2 of them on 13th dec for 2 weeks.

Yes I am a travel agent , I have checked olympic viewdata system today and they are definitely still selling the Monarch flights on there , so must be a fault with thier website , you would think they would resolve it quickly, don't they want the business

Shirley

so must be a fault with thier website , you would think they would resolve it quickly, don't they want the business

As I've pointed this problem out to Olympic several times over the last few weeks, I guess the answer to your question must be 'no'.

I'm not that fussed now as we've just booked a 27 day tour of China so won't be going back to Goa in November 2008 (fingers crossed that they manage to get enough pax to make the tour viable).
We'll know for sure late July - maybe by then Olympic will have fixed their website in case have to look for a deal to Goa.

Polly

I cant get a flight from birmingham next year!!!

Are Thomsonfly pulling out? Shame, that's one of the best schedules timewise this year.

Thomson have pulled the Birmingham flight. It's now the East Midlands flight.

nothing from brum. thomson and first choice are now together and have moved the flight to east mids which is difficult for me to get to - i'll be going from gatwick.