Monarch Airlines

I have flown on Monarch a couple of times, and never has it been less enjoyable than on the 27th of January 2003.

Myself and my wife were on MON2019 from Male (Maldives) to Gatwick. We didn't get off to a great start as the plane we were supposed to be getting had some technical problems in Calgary and so we had to wait for another one to arrive which, to be fair, did not really delay us much although, as the new plane was a smaller AirBus, there was no premium cabin which was not appreciated by those who had paid extra.
Again, as this was a smaller plane, it couldn't make the flight in one go and so had to stop to refuel in Bahrain, adding extra time to the journey.

The amount of space on this plane was absolutely ludicrous. If cattle had been transported in conditions like this, there would be uproar! It wasn't just the lack of legroom, but the seats were SO narrow, that you couldn't actually sit back properly - you had to sit hunched up all the time to make room for your shoulders. As you can imagine, this got a tad uncomfortable after 10 hours or so!

"Oh well", we thought. We'd just had a holiday of a lifetime, so we put up with it...

After our little stop for fuel in Bahrain (the Duty Free is excellent there, by the way!) we started to experience quite a lot of turbulence. The seatbelt sign came on but the drinks trolleys still came round.

Suddenly, without warning, the plane just DROPPED. And I mean it REALLY dropped. At least, that's certainly what it felt like. All the stewardesses PLUS drinks trolleys went flying up in the air. Drinks went everywhere. Thankfully it was just cold drinks at this point.

One woman was just getting up to go to the toilet at the time, and from what I could make out, she whacked her head up pretty bad on the overhead luggage compartments. We had to wait for paramedics to see to the injured before we could get off at Gatwick.

Now, to be fair, this could not have been predicted, and I don't blame Monarch for the turbulence. In fact, the stewardesses were very good and my hat goes off to them.

To see where this is leading, we must move forward in time about 7 or 8 months.... Continue >>>