Monarch airline

[snoopy2]

Not sure if it affects Symi but I see Monarch has been bailed out by Greybull who have given 'significant' monies to turn Monarch around. Monarch fly Cosmos so maybe Rhodes will get more/better flights!!

[Allan]

Monarch have been bailed out by their owners for years and haven't been profitable for a while. Now they are selling out to 'investors' in an attempt to change from a charter to low-cost scheduled airline, competing with the likes of Easyjet and Ryanair. Good luck with that Monarch!

[Andy W]

Monarch have stated that they intend to stop charter flights altogether. Now all their flights to Rhodes are charter flights. So either they will convert these flights into scheduled ones (change the flight numbers from one beginning MON to ones beginning ZB)or they will be cancelled at some point. They currently have 42 aircraft and intend to reduce to 30, so *something* is going to have to get cancelled.
They've already announced that all flights from East Midlands will stop and the base will close, there are similar rumours about Leeds Bradford. If Rhodes flights from Manchester, Gatwick and Birmingham change to scheduled ones it will still be some of the same aircraft and crews (those that are left after the redundancies).
I know of people with MON charter flight bookings who have asked Monarch the direct question "Is my flight going to operate at all in 2015" and have not received any answer. Not encouraging and I wouldn't book any flight with an MON flight number in 2015 until they clarify what they are doing.