We flew with Monarch to the Maldives to celebrate our 25th Wedding Anniversary.

We had booked the Holiday with Thomas Cook and we were aware at the time of booking who the carrier was.

We went with a fairly open mind having read all the reviews about flying long haul with this Airline.

Outbound was not too bad as we had managed to get extra leg room at the front of the economy cabin. Although there were seats available in the Premier Cabin (it was only about 50% full) they are obviously not allowed to sell them to passengers at the time of the flight.

Customers need to understand that on flights to the Maldives these Premier Cabins are Block Booked by Kuoni so unless you are traveling with them you will not be allowed to upgrade into this cabin.

Monarch are not doing themselves any favours by doing this.

The return flight was somewhat different.

We were unable to get extra legroom seats on the way home, but that was OK as at least we managed to sit together. Many other people were upset as they were split up all over the Aircraft. The Ground staff at Male were very blunt and discourteous.

There was a delay of 1 hour due to a fault with the Toilet system.

The legroom on these flights has to be experienced to be believed.

After 11.5 hours being crammed into one of these seats my wife's ankles had swollen up to a point were it concerned us. It took some 2 days for her to recover from this. All the in-flight information tells you to get up and move around the Aircraft at regular intervals how can you when you cannot move?

As I said we went on this flight with an open mind, but I will say now that we will never fly with Monarch again on long haul.