Monarch Airlines

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Monarch Airlines is a charter and scheduled airline based in Luton, England. It is one of the UK's largest charter airlines operating to Europe, the USA, the Caribbean, India and Africa serving mainly leisure destinations. It also operates scheduled flights (under the Monarch Scheduled brand) to Mediterranean destinations and the Canary Islands. Its main bases are London Luton (LTN), London Gatwick (LGW) and Manchester International (MAN).

Contents

1 Code Data
2 History
3 Services
4 Fleet
5 Livery
6 Incidents
7 External links

Code Data

IATA Code: ZB
ICAO Code: MON
Callsign: Monarch

History

The airline was established on 1 June 1967 by Mr. Bill Hodgson and Mr. Don Peacock, with finance from the Swiss Mantegazza and Albek families who own it to this day. It started operations on 5 April 1968 using a Bristol 175 plane. In 1971, Monarch entered the jet age with the Boeing 720 jet. By 1976, all the planes on Monarch's fleet were jets. Alan Snudden, CBE was the chairman of Monarch at this point.

The 1980s was a decade of change for Monarch: in 1981, offices were opened at London Gatwick Airport, Glasgow International Airport and Manchester International Airport. In 1985, Monarch applied for scheduled airline licenses, and on 5 July 1986, Monarch Crown Service was inaugurated as a scheduled division of Monarch.

In 1998 Monarch leased two MD-11 aircraft from World Airways to help with its long-haul operations whilst awaiting the arrival of the Airbus A330. The MD-11s were later returned to World Airways upon the arrival of the Airbus A330 in 1999. The Airbus A330 aircraft allowed Monarch to serve long reach charter destinations with a two class seating configuration. 2000 saw the coming of Monarch into the internet age, as they launched their website. In 2002, Monarch unveiled a new livery on their aircraft, and Monarch Crown Service was re-named to Monarch Scheduled. 2002 also saw Monarch disposing the only DC-10 in the fleet (G-DMCA) and donating the Front Section for use at Manchester Airport Aviation Park. In Nov. 2005 Monarch started flying from Aberdeen (Dyce), Newquay (Now dropped) and Blackpool (Squires Gate) to Malaga.

Due to the lack of additional A330 aircraft on the market, Monarch leased one Boeing 767-300ER from MyTravel Airways (G-DIMB) to expand their long-haul product. Additional destinations were put on the Network Map with services fly from Aberdeen (Dyce), Newquay and Blackpool (Squires Gate) to Malaga.

Monarch have recently added an Airbus A321 from bmi (British Midland) to their fleet and is based out of Manchester for Scheduled operations to destinations such as Lanzarote. Another recent announcement from Monarch will bring increased Legroom to their 2 A330-200 Aircraft will will increase Seat Pitch from 29 inches to 31 inches bringing it on a similar standard to First Choice Airways and British Airways.

In the world of Model airplanes, Monarch has contracts with several airplane model companies, such as Wooster, Flight Miniatures, etc.

Services

Monarch Airlines operates services to the following international scheduled destinations: Alicante, Almería, Barcelona, Faro, Gibraltar, Granada, Heraklion, Lanzarote, Lisbon, Las Palmas, Málaga, Menorca, Murcia and Tenerife, with Jerez and Ibiza to join the network in Summer 2007.

Monarch Airlines also operates a Winter Ski Charter service to Calgary, Canada. With 2 flights weekly from both Manchester and London Gatwick, it provides a link for skiers to ski the Canadian Rocky Mountains from December to April.

It will inaugurate nonstop service as follows, using Airbus A320 :
London's Luton-Almeria & London's Luton-Ibiza on May 2006 : 4 & 5 flights a week.

It will also increase frequency on a number of routes at London's Luton for the summer 07 season (compared to the summer 06 season) as follows to :
Faro = from 5 to 7 flts a week.
Malaga = from 7 to 13 flts a week.
Palma = from 1 to 9 flts a week.

Fleet

The Monarch Airlines fleet consists of the following aircraft (at June 2005):

Monarch Airlines average fleet age is 12.2 years old in june 2006.

Livery

All 27 aircraft in the Monarch fleet are now painted in the revised livery introduced in March 2002. The aircraft have gold and indigo colours that sweep along the lower half of the aircraft rising to the tail, which still bears the 'M' logo with diamond and 3 dots above it.

Incidents

A Boeing 757-200 en route Luxor-Manchester was forced to make an emergency landing at Athens on June 12 2006 after the pilot fell ill.

External links

[link] MonPix.co.uk

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