This was our first time flying with Monarch but it certainly won’t be our last.
I booked return flights last August for a family party of nine to Lanzarote from Gatwick, for travel at Easter 2015.
The online booking process was quite straightforward and I was able to pre-book seats together (three with extra legroom), 3Kg hold luggage, and meals. These all came as a reasonably priced package. We also booked priority boarding which saved us a lot of time as the queues on the return, were horrific. (That’s the airport’s fault – not the airline’s.)
Both flights were on time and they allowed us to embark first as we had small children with us.
The first thing that struck us was the generous amount of legroom! Even the tallest in our party (6′ 1″) found the regular seats had ample legroom and we were all very comfortable throughout the flights.
The adult meals were surprisingly tasty and the children’s meals were fun and they all enjoyed them. We also found the meals helped to break up the flight – especially for the children – aged 6,4 & 4.
The cabin crew were welcoming and friendly and seemed to genuinely enjoy their jobs. Sadly, this was remarkable as we’ve found staff on the major package tour flight operators over recent years to be generally quite offhand.
I also booked our hotel and private transfers separately and saved around £2k – total cost was approx £5k instead of £7k on a package holiday. For the first time in many years we didn’t feel like cattle and this was largely due to our flights.
Well done Monarch!
