Flew on the Monarch Scheduled flight to Tenerife on the 30th July 2004 (ZB558) and returned on the 13th August 2004 (ZB559).

When we usually travel to Tenerife we usually get a morning flight, but at the price of £140 including taxes for this flight I couldn't refuse and with free newspapers, meal and drinks it couldn't have been better!

The flight was late to take off because we didn't have a first officer in the flight deck. He had called in sick so we had to wait on the aircraft for 45 minutes for a replacement, but when he arrived it was all systems go!

We had pre-booked our seats for free as it was part of the package and as we had no one sat next to us we had three seats to ourselves for the four hour flight which was good. We could spread our legs a bit and we put all of our clutter in the middle seat. We were on an A320 on both journeys and going out everything went smoothly and we landed 10 minutes late in Tenerife.

On the return journey check in was very slow and as we got to the airport in plenty of time, we were nearly the last to check in, if I didn't have pre-booked seats I wouldn't have been happy, but as I had it didn't really bother me. We boarded the flight early and took off early. It was a nice pleasant flight with a good choice of meals and drinks. One thing we had on the return which we didn't have on the outbound was an in flight movie. We made up more time as the journey went on and we arrived in Manchester 25 minutes early! Good for Monarch, the first flight in 14 years of flying that has arrived early!

Before we got to our stand we had to wait as the stand we had been allocated still had another aircraft as we had arrived so early, but surely at midnight there are many other stands available? Anyway we were given an alternate stand and had to disembark on steps, which is rare for Manchester. What dismayed everyone on the flight is that the handling agents Aviance wouldn't bring the steps until 00:20 when we were supposed to arrive. When they eventually did everyone wasn't happy as we had arrived early, but still had to wait on the plane for 25 minutes. Once we disembarked and got to the luggage carousels we were there a good ten minutes before an announcement told us that the bags would take an extra 20 minutes! This is 00:30 only two flights in the hall and had a 20 minute delay for our bags! All passengers were not over joyed!

If I were Monarch I would perhaps re consider having there handling agents Aviance. Apart from this Monarch did superbly and I am looking forward to flying with them again next Easter.

Another bonus is that 2 passengers were unable to fly with us, and as I had booked a holiday to Tenerife for me and my girlfriend next Easter we managed to change there seats to the Easter dates for £65 each which included a name change, date change and fare increase! Not bad going really and we will still get the free meal and drinks on those flights as I booked in December 2003!