Stuck in Lanzarote and paying accommodation - Monarch grrr!

silvercar

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Just heard from someone else who was booked on the same flight that got cancelled. They saw people blag their way onto a Manchester flight by flashing the right flight number just written down on a piece of paper (which is all you get over the phone from Monarch). We may be reduced to doing this tomorrow.

I doubt that would work. We were once on a plane where there were too many people for seats. It took 2 hours with us sitting on the runway while they checked and rechecked who was entitled to seats, then another 40 minutes while they searched for the ejected people's luggage to remove from the hold.

Redshoes1

Coupon Mad

Just returned today from Sharm El Sheikh. We booked originally with On the Beach who booked our flights through Kiss. We were due to fly home on 15th April, but were left stranded in the airport. Rang OTB who tried to sell me four more flights with Jet2 at £1600 for the following day, but no assistance with accommodation etc - after 45 mins debate, decided that Kiss were liable, so transferred me to them. They informed me that the flight was delayed and would leave at some point - to check their website intermittently. Desk at airport handed us a pre printed letter from Monarch - charter flights - contact your tour operator. Thomson & Thomas Cook helped all their passengers & commenced booking up hotels. We had no alternative but to ring our original hotel to request an additional stay. The charges immediately doubled. Paid for taxi transfer to hotel. No rep, no assistance from OTB/Monarch or Kiss. Forced to pay own hotel costs for the last 7 nights, but have kept the bills. I really feel for you as we've felt abandoned for the last week. We haven't unpacked as no certainty as to how to get back home. Patchy news on Egyptian TV. My mobile costs will be extortionate. Husband is self employed - loss of earnings. Additional 7 nights cost at airport for car stay. Other costs that we don't have receipts for.

Found out, by accident, from another passenger that Monarch had rebooked our original flight for 1950 hrs last nite. Repaid taxi to airport. Anxious as no certainty re seat. Finally landed back in Manchester at 3:30 a.m.

It's been a complete nightmare! People were stressed enough that were fortunate in having their accommodation sorted by Thomson & Thomas Cook. When you're left high and dry, with no support & at your own cost - it's really worrying!

withabix

CM: Are Monarch paying for your hotel + food yet?

Have you flown back today?

One of the problems with Lanzarote is the low number of flights althogether, plus this all happened at the end of the Easter holidays, when flights will have been quite full coming back.

josie

Wish I was stuck somewhere hot! (with an EU carrier, of course!)

sloan

We arrived in Long Beach on Sunday from cruise to Pacific Mexico. We had heard intermittent news reports about the problem. We went straight to LAX to find out about the position. We were not supposed to be flying until Monday night. We were rescheduled for April 30th and told we could have 4 days hotel stay and were booked into the Marriott. Met some Virgin customers from the Radisson on a bus to Santa Monica on Monday morning and they said there was a notice up in their hotel to the affect that Lord Adonis had instructed BA to cover hotels/meals. We now find ourselves booked on a full-board basis into the 4star Marriott LAX for 12 days. We are hoping to get home a bit earlier (but not too much earlier!) Retired and our time is our own, but did miss our flights to Cyprus this morning. Have booked new flights with Monarch for May 5th. Have an apartment there so doesn't matter if we are with Monarch and get stuck in a further eruption!

Coupon-mad

josie wrote: »

Wish I was stuck somewhere hot! (with an EU carrier, of course!)

Monarch are an EU carrier but no, they did not pay (yet) for our food/accom but we did get back last night!

Only got back because my latest desperate email was finally forwarded to the Cosmos welfare team (email addy is: [EMAIL="wel1@cosmos.co.uk"]wel1@cosmos.co.uk[/EMAIL]) - who were the one shining light in that godforsaken company.

We will never fly with Monarch/Cosmos ever again, once the crisis happened, every aspect of contact with them until that final day was shockingly rude/wrong/uncaring.

On Thursday, EVERY Monarch flight to the UK from Lanzarote had around FIFTY empty seats on each flight. I know this as fact, saw it with our own eyes and the staff were really jittery trying to call for people to come & get on their planes - but no-one had been told to go to the Airport except the package holiday guests. We could have boarded a flight to Birmingham, Luton, Manchester or Gatwick - it was our choice! Shocking when there were around 3,000 people stranded in Lanzarote and 12,000 on Tenerife, I was told.

Monarch were telling us when we phoned that all flights back to the UK were full until May 1st - when in reality they simply are not taking any account of those people who had never even made it out of the UK last week. I believe that no other flight company was as bad (British Consulate in Spain said so to another passenger on the phone 'worse than Ryanair'). In our hotel, Thomson and Thomas Cook were wonderful to all their clients, including flight-only people, and were a fine example of how to handle a crisis.

If anyone still has relatives stuck anywhere, waiting for a Monarch flight date and believing that all flights are currently full, PLEASE tell them to go to the Airport even if the phones line says the flights are booked. They are not! There will no doubt be Monarch planes from everywhere back to the UK with seats on them every day at the mo. Please tell any relatives or friends still stranded anywhere that Monarch planes fly from, to go to the Airport and ask at the Monarch desk about getting on a plane as a free standby customer. These empty seats don't show on the internet or if you phone them, but they are there for the taking at the Airports.

If you are still stranded, are with Monarch but booked now to come back on a later date you can just turn up at the Airport and they will now let you have a free 'standby ticket' (handwritten bit of paper) and once others have boarded the gaps will be there, believe me. If booked to come back for a later flight with another Airline, you can buy a Monarch ticket immediately at the airports at the moment - not just Lanzarote, this is everywhere as they have c@cked it up by only bothering to find out about their flight only holidaymakers' whereabouts.

They are desperate for it not to get out that their planes are flying with empty seats but they have no chance of keeping this quiet.

BLUEWKD

Welcome home CM.
What a nightmare your hard earned holiday has turned out to be. After readng about your experiences, I will make sure that I never fly with Monarch Airlines or Cosmos, no matter how cheap the deal may be.

photome

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Monarch are an EU carrier but no, they did not pay (yet) for our food/accom but we did get back last night!

Only got back because my latest desperate email was finally forwarded to the Cosmos welfare team (email addy is: [EMAIL="wel1@cosmos.co.uk"]wel1@cosmos.co.uk[/EMAIL]) - who were the one shining light in that godforsaken company.

We will never fly with Monarch/Cosmos ever again, once the crisis happened, every aspect of contact with them until that final day was shockingly rude/wrong/uncaring.

On Thursday, EVERY Monarch flight to the UK from Lanzarote had around FIFTY empty seats on each flight. I know this as fact, saw it with our own eyes and the staff were really jittery trying to call for people to come & get on their planes - but no-one had been told to go to the Airport except the package holiday guests. We could have boarded a flight to Birmingham, Luton, Manchester or Gatwick - it was our choice! Shocking when there were around 3,000 people stranded in Lanzarote and 12,000 on Tenerife, I was told.

Monarch were telling us when we phoned that all flights back to the UK were full until May 1st - when in reality they simply are not taking any account of those people who had never even made it out of the UK last week. I believe that no other flight company was as bad (British Consulate in Spain said so to another passenger on the phone 'worse than Ryanair'). In our hotel, Thomson and Thomas Cook were wonderful to all their clients, including flight-only people, and were a fine example of how to handle a crisis.

If anyone still has relatives stuck anywhere, waiting for a Monarch flight date and believing that all flights are currently full, PLEASE tell them to go to the Airport even if the phones line says the flights are booked. They are not! There will no doubt be Monarch planes from everywhere back to the UK with seats on them every day at the mo. Please tell any relatives or friends still stranded anywhere that Monarch planes fly from, to go to the Airport and ask at the Monarch desk about getting on a plane as a free standby customer. These empty seats don't show on the internet or if you phone them, but they are there for the taking at the Airports.

If you are still stranded, are with Monarch but booked now to come back on a later date you can just turn up at the Airport and they will now let you have a free 'standby ticket' (handwritten bit of paper) and once others have boarded the gaps will be there, believe me. If booked to come back for a later flight with another Airline, you can buy a Monarch ticket immediately at the airports at the moment - not just Lanzarote, this is everywhere as they have c@cked it up by only bothering to find out about their package holidaymakers' whereabouts.

They are desperate for it not to get out that their planes are flying with empty seats but they have no chance of keeping this quiet.

Pleased you are home but how do you know that as fact unless you were on every plane and head counting, but if it is the case it def needs bringing to someones attention

Coupon-mad

photome wrote: »

Pleased you are home but how do you know that as fact unless you were on every plane and head counting, but if it is the case it def needs bringing to someones attention

Because the Handling Agent Manager who was sorting everyone out who had these pieces of paper told us about the first Gatwick flight, he was shocked himself at how it had been handled. And then we stood to one side for a couple of hours and saw all the other flights board (except the Manchester flight which was later on - but The Manager assured us when we were 'gambling for the Gatwick flight' that we could always wait for the Manchester one if we had wanted to as they were all bound to be the same, indeed we phoned another family from our hotel to come & catch it if they could pack quick enough!).

He told us that the 'pieces of paper' system was brought in at 1pm on Thursday at Lanzarote, because they saw the 12 noon Gatwick flight leave with 50 odd empty seats. They alerted higher Management who I understand had already heard what was happening at other Airports - they had already had a conference call about it at 10am.

This was the system they quickly came up with and it's why I was finally phoned by the Cosmos Welfare team, along with a few others, at 2.30pm and strongly advised to get to the Airport. I was only phoned due to yet another email I sent that morning, for the very first time I was not ignored. The Monarch flights booking team had told us that morning on the phone, after a 45 minute wait to get through on my mobile, that every flight this week was fully booked.

We were there when the Birmingham and Luton flights boarded, and the Manager asked 'OK now who wants Birmingham?' and everyone in the very small group waiting on standby asked how many seats there were, it was forty or so and a few passengers went for that flight. Then an hour later it was 'OK now who wants Luton?' as there were around 60 extra seats. A few people decided to go for it to be sure of a flight - but in practice there was no need.

We asked him if there were still seats on the later Gatwick flight and he was cagey but said 'yes, plenty at the moment, and anyway you could always get on the Manchester flight if not as they'll all be the same. If it were me I would wait and not worry'. So we waited for the Gatwick flight, got on and there were spare seats every few rows, maybe 30 empty on that flight.

No joke, we know this was the case and it's horrifying to think that people are still out there waiting for their 1st May flight with Monarch as they don't know any different.

We also know that this 'pieces of paper' system was not in place until lunchtime because my OH went to the Airport at 8am to try to get seats whilst I was phoning. No joy, he had come back empty-handed at 11am because all UK flights for the whole week were showing on the system as fully booked. Not true!