Home > MyTravel Airways > 2003 > Review

Taken August 2003 from Manchester to Antalya

I have been travelling to Antalya airport in Turkey for 7 years, and staying at the same accommodation with niche holiday operator Manos. Unfortunately my unease about this years journey was justified after I learnt that Manos were now fully integrated as part of the Mytravel group of companies.

As I expected, my worst fears were realised. Manos had stopped using Monarch airlines and switched to MyTravel Airways, their new management's in house airline. As a frequent flyer and keen aviation follower, I am well aware of MyTravels time keeping and generally poor service, and my outbound journey was as I expected, not without fault. It is a real shame that Manos has been swallowed by MyTravel, when they used Monarch it was fantastic.

MYT261 31/08/03 18:00 - give or take a few hours :0)

MyTravel have a dedicated check in hall at Manchester, which is better than just having a set of desks, so all MyTravel customers for all flights go and check in at the same area. I think it's to hide all the disgruntled passengers from others in the main check in hall.

After a very short wait, my party of seven proceeded to a desk. On inspecting our ticketed destination, she looked up at me with a sympathetic expression and told me my flight was delayed by 3 hours. One thing that puzzled me was that she looked surprised at the delay. My party was devastated, I had been telling them since we booked the holiday that we had flights with MyTravel and we would be delayed, but they said we would be fine! But I didn't stand there smug, I was as mortified as them.

I asked what the reason for a delay was, and was told there was no crew for the flight! No surprise as MyTravel have made job cuts, but continue to operate a crazy number of flights - this problem is bound to occur regularly. "Can't say I am surprised" I said to the check in assistant, who suddenly became harassed. "Why is that then!?" "You're always delayed!" "No we aren't".

What kind of customer service is this, I could understand if I had approached her and hurled offensive abuse, but she simply 'went on one' as they say and continued to argue!

My sister, who works for TUI Travel agent Lunn Poly approached, "Excuse me, I work in travel and you are delayed most of the time!". "Well I work here at check in and we aren't!".

We left it at that, we knew who was correct in this argument, as any seasoned traveller will know. The yearly survey of charter airlines published independently by ABTA and the AUC shows MyTravel/Airtours International as the worst airline for delays and has done so for years. They can't get it right!

A clear sign of frequent delays, MyTravel have pre printed standard meal vouchers not specific to our particular flight and £3 per passenger was issued to use before we left the jolly devoted MyTravel worker at checkin. Big deal! That might buy me a Mars Bar.

But 3 hours with MyTravel is a drop in a pond, I expected more really and was prepared for a further delay to be announced. Two people in my party had twice been delayed with MyTravel and last year had a 15 hour delay from Spain, again due to crew and technical problems.

Thankfully, Manchester Terminal 1 is great for shopping and dining, so the time passed quickly, but when our 18:00 departure slot came and went we were reminded that we should have been in the air and on our way to Antalya.

Finally, our flight was called. We proceeded to our gate, and was greeted by an Airbus A320 in the new colours, which are vile, and the scene was of MyTravel ground staff and dispatchers frantically trying to prepare an aircraft that had been on the ground for 6 hours! They still remained unready for us.

The dispatcher announced the boarding of passengers seated in rows 18 to 45, strange I thought! And my thoughts were justified because the aircraft in front of the gate was an A320 seating 180 passengers, and having a total of 26 rows of 6 seats!

Thankfully, the dispatcher realised her mistake and quickly re-announced the seats. The aircraft was all bling bling new Mytravel on the outside, but shabby, yellowed plastic and dull Airtours on the inside. The cabin was in need of a thorough clean. Airtours, despite being in financial trouble, decided to re-brand - nobody forced them to, but now the whole new look phase has slowed to a halt. The cabin crew retain their cheap looking Airtours International uniforms.

Wow, a good remark on MyTravel. The seats, although looking cheap, are very comfortable compared to Britannia and the leg room is also more generous.

Although only seating 180 passengers, not all seats were filled leaving rows of seats empty. Despite this, a family with two young children had seats spilt up around the aft of the cabin. Why? Thankfully, the crew let them move. I bet they moaned at the lady at check in like us so she gave them duff seats (OK, perhaps a little silly, but you never know).

The captain spoke briefly and confirmed the lack of staff for the flight, and promoted our understanding and requested we more or less thank the standby crew for getting off their backsides and operating the flight for us. What do they want, a medal?!! If MyTravel operated a professional airline to start with, there would not be this problem.

Finally we pushed back from our stand, totalling a delay of 3 hours and 40 minutes. In 20 minutes time we would have just about landed at Antalya had the flight departed on time.

The safety video was shown, the volume was set too high so the narrator sounded like a bee trapped in a glass - the small speakers could not cope with the volume level. Furthermore, MyTravel seem to have made the safety video into a comedy with a ridiculous animation with such memorable moments as the animated character giving an "oh eck" expression when an oxygen mask flopped down in front of him. It certainly made me laugh, but it's not acceptable really, besides I couldn't see the tiny screen for crying with laughter!

The breaks were very keen on this aircraft and noisy (klunk click), which presented several worried looks on the face of some passengers. The cabin lights were switched off completely for departure, which was fun!

The inflight entertainment was OK, but nothing resembling what was listed in the magazine. Cabin announcements were erratic and unprofessional.

Well done however on the meal, which was hot and tasty, but served at 11pm, but was it worth £10 however? No, not really.

Finally, landing in Antalya nearly 4 hours behind schedule and one final moan from me. The captain announced 10 minutes to landing, but 20 minutes later we had not even commenced final approach.

All in all, I got what I expected. It's Airtours with a new name, but the same old tricks! Poor service in general, delayed surprise surprise, and a shabby little aircraft compared to the Monarch A300-600 and 757, which previously operated for Manos.

I had two weeks to prepare for my return flight now, did it go smoothly? Yeah right! Check out the return journey review, a much better flight, but still problematic.

I hope you enjoyed reading my review of the flight, and hope it will help you to choose your flights. I enjoy writing these reports and try to make them as detailed and humorous as possible. This website is a fantastic asset to the flying public and it's a pleasure to be involved.

JMS.