In case anyone is interested, here is the letter (& thus the story!) of my doomed flight back to the UK.....I will not be recommending Monarch Airlines to anyone!
Customer Relations Department
Monarch Airlines
Prospect House
Prospect Way
London Luton Airport
Luton
Bedfordshire LU2 9NU
Ref Flight ZB069 22/09/04 Gibraltar-London
To Whom It May Concern
I would like to express my disappointment and distress concerning the above flight upon which I was a passenger. I received a telephone call at approximately 16:00 CET from a friend to inform me that the Monarch flight from Luton that was due to have landed at 11:30 CET was delayed and had not left Luton by that time. I tried to telephone Gibraltar Airport, both Flight Information and the Monarch Desk but both lines were either engaged or broadcasting a recorded message. After this I telephoned Customer Services at Luton who said that they were not sure how the evening flight was affected but yes, the morning flight had not departed, and yes, my flight was very likely to be delayed. The woman I spoke to
suggested that telephoning Gibraltar Airport Flight Information was the best way of
obtaining more information. After several more attempts at getting through I finally managed to speak to someone at Flight Information who assured me that there were no delays whatsoever and to check in as normal even though I told her what I had been told by Luton. As I was getting out of my taxi at the Airport the news came through that not only was the flight delayed by 4 hours but it had also been re-routed via Malaga. The reason given for the flight delay and the switch to Malaga was that the original plane had mechanical problems and the new plane was too large to land on Gibraltar's runway. I would be very interested to hear from yourselves exactly why it took you 12 hours to 'find' a suitable
replacement aircraft when you patently knew at 07:50 GMT that the scheduled airplane was not able to fly. In fact, I would be further interested to hear why you appear to have so many mechanical problems with your planes at present as a colleague of mine was on the Luton to Gibraltar flight the previous day and was asked to get off the aircraft after boarding as it was unsuitable to fly. Does this mean that you were aware of the mechanical problem twenty four hours before the scheduled flight from Luton at 07:50 GMT on the Wednesday morning?
Perhaps you are having extensive mechanical problems with your fleet instead and this was a completely different aircraft that was not fit to fly on the previous day.
The ironic part of this tale is that on the previous occasion that I chose to fly Monarch back to the UK the flight was cancelled after landing at Gibraltar as, coincidentally enough, the plane was deemed to be unfit to fly back to the UK. This was the Gibraltar - Luton flight on Wednesday June 16th due to depart in the evening. On this occasion a replacement craft was flown to Malaga and
those of us travelling on the flight had to wait at Malaga until 03:30 CET when we finally became airborne.
I live and work in Gibraltar; the whole point of me choosing to fly on the evening flights is that I can fly after work and still arrive in the UK at a decent hour. I usually fly with BA and you can rest assured that I will continue to use them wherever possible as I am exceptionally disappointed with the service I have received from Monarch Airlines on the two flights I have had with you in the last three months. Not only is your service disappointing but I find it amazing that you can market yourself as a 'budget airline' and offer 'a better service' to passengers by cutting out the in flight meal and complimentary beverages yet fail to lower
your prices! An average scheduled flight with Monarch from Gibraltar to London costs around the same as an average scheduled flight with BA from Gibraltar to London yet I have never once experienced a delay with a BA flight to or from the UK and they always serve in flight food & complimentary beverages.
I did not forward a complaint to yourselves about my flight home in June although at the time I was very aggrieved at the long delay; I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt. This time however I feel that I have to draw your attention to this matter as to have such flight disruptions after working all day twice in three months I believe to be a little too much to stomach.
h34r: :angy:
:blink: 
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