Just had the misfortune of using this new Monarch route to Faro. They are using a budget Italian airline Air Italy to run this route. Plane must have been at least 30 years old, broken seats, lights held together with black tape and crew didn't speak much English. Booked this flight as the times were good and an alternative to Ryanair, I have since been informed that they will be using Air Italy for the next few months! Its not just the Faro route they are using other carriers on their routes to Spain.There is nothing on their website and the only notification you get is an email/text the day before the flight.

As a nervous passenger I have never been so glad to get off a flight, so one to be avoided for a while, looks like its back to Ryanair!!

it seems monarch are doing this on a few routes as my cousin has just returned from spain&on the outward journey from east mids airport he booked to go with monarch but they substituted the plane with one from lithuanian airlines which was very old&the interior was in a bit of a state with one seat having no back to it !!!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bi ... m-19676990




http://www.airfleets.net/ageflotte/Aurela.htm

When I landed at Birmingham last thurs - the notorious lithuanian airlines Boeing 737 which monarch ahd hired, was still parked at the end of the apron - somebody said "was that a for sale sign on the tail?"

We did a similar type of flight on a chartered in flight from Norwich to Ibiza a couple of years ago. Our booked Thompson Boeing 757 flight, was in an old DC9 operated by a now defunct Spanish charter company, and through the paintwork you could see the Turkish airlines livery.
So it's not just Monarch!!

A few years ago, I remember flying back from Faro on an Icelandic Air Jumbo jet when we were actually booked through the now defunct JMC.

charlie wrote:Just had the misfortune of using this new Monarch route to Faro. They are using a budget Italian airline Air Italy to run this route. Plane must have been at least 30 years old, broken seats, lights held together with black tape and crew didn't speak much English. Booked this flight as the times were good and an alternative to Ryanair, I have since been informed that they will be using Air Italy for the next few months! Its not just the Faro route they are using other carriers on their routes to Spain.There is nothing on their website and the only notification you get is an email/text the day before the flight.

As a nervous passenger I have never been so glad to get off a flight, so one to be avoided for a while, looks like its back to Ryanair!!

I have just reposted this comment (under my name) on the: Monarch Blog