Poor customer relations, always delayed especially in Portugal (Monarch Airlines)

Member Name: emmajt81

Product:	Monarch Airlines
Date:	05/10/09 (107 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Any advantages have been blurred out by the bad experiences

Disadvantages: Poor customer relations

I have flown with Monarch on a few occasions - as far as budget airlines go they possibly aren't that bad if you manage to luckily get on a flight with courteous staff and one without delays. A word of warning - if you are going to Portugal I would avoid Monarch like this plague.

A friend of mine was a holiday rep in Portugal for a year and constantly went to the airport to greet her guests and take them to their hotels. For a year she told me time and time again how Monarch were always delayed and if there was slight rain in the UK, Monarch were always the first to cancel their flights or add delays to their departure time, meaning they were late coming into Portugal and even later returning to the UK. I thought she was exaggerating but of the half a dozen times I have used Monarch to fly to Portugal (I have friends there so travel there a lot) only once has my flight been on time. I thought I'd give them one last shot a couple of weeks ago - only to be delayed by 7 hours due to a technical fault. Suffice to say I won't be using Monarch again. Even Easyjet aren't this bad!

Their website is easy enough to use - the fares that come up initially do not include tax though so a £9.99 one way fare isn't quite as cheap as you'd think - add tax and surcharges and bags onto that and you're probably looking at £60 on way rather than £10. Still one of the cheapest budget airlines though. They usually have two check in desks per flight in UK airports (whereas Easyjet have about 10 for all their flights so there's one long queue - which actually works better). When I was there two weeks ago for the 7 hour delay, we weren't told til we got to the desk and then it was like, look love, either check in and wait 7 hours or go and find another flight. The information desk at Gatwick for Monarch were not helpful either - wouldn't even get me a list of alternative carriers flying to Portugal that morning. Whereas when I visited the BA desk to see what time their flight was, the lady there happily wrote down all the other flight carriers times for me - and we weren't even flying with BA! A little customer service goes a long way. And I am not really a fan of BA generally speaking.

Another time I flew with Monarch I was with a friend who was nearly 7 months pregnant and nearing the time when she would have had to have stopped flying. The holiday was booked before she fell pregnant so just decided to still go. The flight was 5 hours delayed, we were given no meal vouchers and check in at Portugal did not even tell us about the delay so we didn't find out until we had gone through security and saw the screens in the departure lounge. Monarch had no staff anywhere to talk to, we spoke to a TAP Portugal (Portuguese airline) representative who told us we should have had meal vouchers etc given to us by now. We even called Monarch from the information line in departures (their office in the actual airport) and the phone just rang and rang and rang. Great customer service. After 5 hours in the airport and no luck tracking anyone down from Monarch as they seemed to have conveniently gone walkabout, we got to the plane and asked the gate staff and cabin crew about it. This was met by a load of shrugs and 'I don't know I work on the plane or 'I work at the gate it's not my job'. Thanks for that.

My pregnant friend asked a stewardess for a cup of water and she was basically told to get lost and she could buy a bottle of water from their trolley once we were airborne like everyone else. She said it might still take ages to take off and could she have some just in case considering we'd had to spend more money than planned in the airport during our fun 5 hour delay without meal vouchers, and the stewardess said she didn't care it wasn't policy and nothing is free. Charming. When my friend told the stewardess the tray didn't fit over her baby bump the stewardess said 'oh yes it will' and literally crammed it right down onto her bump. I couldn't believe my eyes. On that particular flight also the arm rest was broken and the tray in front of my other friend kept falling down and the toilet was out of use - there were no spare seats so we couldn't move. We were also on the same plane coming out - and the toilet was broken then as well - over a week earlier and it still wasn't fixed.

Suffice to say a complaint letter was hastily written - they weren't bothered and just said they were sorry but they wouldn't compensate us. I am definitely owed a refund on my seats I didn't use on the 7 hour delay 2 weeks ago and have just written to them again. If they say no they will be going to court as its my right to have a refund as per EU Regulation.

For me, it didn't really matter what the seats were like on the plane (standard and acceptable) or what the in-flight entertainment was like (on the planes with TV screens just a comedy show that's shown). Even the fact that you actually got a seat number at check in was simply a blur after all the bad experiences. Their customer service at Monarch is so shockingly bad that it over rides any plus points they may have. They aren't even as cheap as Ryan Air or Easyjet unless they're having a sale and I'll bet you get a better service out of them than Monarch (Easyjet I can vouch for). I had a couple of bad experiences, then a good one, so decided to give them another chance but the last few experiences I have had have not been good.

Their slogan is 'expect more, pay less'. Yes you can expect more but you won't get it. Trust me - fly Easyjet - a much smoother ride.

Summary: Poor customer relations, always delayed, fly with someone else - anyone else!