Monarch Airlines

[Jon Dempsey]

Conversly, Greybull are thought to be looking at AirBerlin.

 

[jfy1999]

Conversly, Greybull are thought to be looking at AirBerlin.

Confirming what Jon said earlier, CEO Andrew Swaffield has denied Monarch are for sale, saying that they are actually interesting in buying several other airlines including airberlin, TUIfly and, get this, Thomas Cook.

If Monarch did buy either of those last two, I wouldn't understand the logic behind the move, because they've just completed a transition from a leisure to a low cost model.

http://www.lse.co.uk/FinanceNews.as...es_boss_says_eyeing_acquisitions_not_for_sale

 

[Ray Finkle]

More about Thomas Cook selling off the airline in the link below, there is quite a bit of interest. Lufthansa seem to be interested in the Condor part of the group.

It seemed as if Monarch were aiming to move away from the leisure carrier image and looking to be thought of in the same way as the likes of Easyjet. Maybe they've had a change of plan and it's too good an opportunity to miss.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/...Cook-talks-rivals-sell-fleet-91-aircraft.html

 

[G-MANS]

Last I heard AirBerlin were begging EZ to buy them. And there were mentions of EZ buying ZB.

Now ZB want to buy AirBerlin...

Well, I guess that's one way of doing it. Get ZB to buy AirBerlin, then EZ can gobble up ZB

 

[Jon Dempsey]

Monarch are too small to expand significantly through organic growth and they are a very small player in the LOCO market.
Greybull have always said that their plans for Monarch would be expansion, so acquisitions would make a lot of sense.

 

[jfy1999]

I'm not sure if Greybull would do away with the Thomas Cook brand, seeing as it's not just an airline but an entire package tour company of which the airline is only a division?

 

[G-MANS]

I'm not sure if Greybull would do away with the Thomas Cook brand, seeing as it's not just an airline but an entire package tour company of which the airline is only a division?

My understanding is the Thomas Cook Group is just selling off the airline division. The IT company will just exist without their own in house airline.

 

[JF57]

It all seems to have gone very quiet about the sale or acquisition or whatever. Has anyone heard anything recently?

Also it appears that Monarch have dropped LCA for the winter. Assume they think they have a better route to use the aircraft on?

 

[Ray Finkle]

I don't believe that winter is fully released yet, I'm sure they suggested less than 80% was on sale?

There are things happening behind the scenes with possible big changes to come, it all sounds quite positive though. Hopefully it will come off and we'll hear something soon 🙂

 

[Brum X]

To be fair, Larnaca and cyprus as a whole is a funny one in winter. Between Nov and Feb, it can be pretty cold, even snow on the hills. Apart from later in the winter when it warms up a little, its not a place i would go on holiday too during these months, having said that as a previous poster pointed out there is a bit of VFR traffic between the UK and cyprus.

 

[Bhx_fifteen]

As I mentioned in another thread, Monarch confirmed via Twitter and Facebook that LCA will not operate this winter, meaning the airport is not served year-round for the first time in decades.

It's a real shame and I'm sure they could operate at least once weekly. In previous winters, it hasn't really been holiday makers using the route, but rather English Cypriots travelling between, uni students going home etc.

There are a number of new Cypriot start-up's rumoured to commence operations this year, most of which have already signed deals for aircraft and started hiring crew. This includes 'Cobalt Air', 'Orion Air' (no relation to the defunct UK carrier!) and 'Charlie Air', a subsidiary of Russian airline S7. All 3 have mentioned the UK as a target market, and Cobalt in particular have expressed their interest in marketing Cyprus as a year-round destination, so we'll have to wait and see.

 

[JF57]

We have travelled quite a few times in January and March the last being March 2016. Every time the planes have been quite full. With Monarch pulling the flights from MAN to LCA a year or two ago BHX had a healthy load factor.

As mentioned before it is not really a holiday destination during the winter period. According to the car hire operators at LCA things really drop off mid-November for tourists but there is a sizeable Cypriot population in the UK, quite a few young Cypriots study in the UK and there are plenty of Brits living in Cyprus who need the all year round service. The flight prices were significantly higher around Christmas and New Year indicating there was a good demand.

It seems amazing that Monarch will have 5 flights a week in October 2016 then none in November - falling off a cliff. Normally they gradually pull the flights after the summer peak starting with the Thursday flight coming down to two flights a week throughout the winter.

It will be interesting if someone else steps into the gap.

 

[JENNYJET]

British passengers also need Limmasol as this the closest airport to Akrotiri, the Sovereign Base on Cyprus! Akrotiri being the military airfield of course thus civilian traffic needs Limmasol so Larnaca is for the civilian beach bums....:

 

[Brum X]

Dont know why this is being reported as i believe these x 2 routes operated ex BHX in winter 15/16 ??

http://www.travelmole.com/news_feature.php?news_id=2022235&c=setreg&region=2

 

[Ray Finkle]

Yeah Salzburg and Turin both operated last winter, the frequency is still the same, weekly on a Saturday.

Grenoble is 2x weekly on Saturday and Sunday.

It does say that there are more routes to follow, we still have Larnaca not bookable and at the moment Venice ends in November.

 

[Brum X]

So maybe more to come from Monarch.

 

[Jon Dempsey]

Dont know why this is being reported as i believe these x 2 routes operated ex BHX in winter 15/16 ??

http://www.travelmole.com/news_feature.php?news_id=2022235&c=setreg&region=2

Travelmole usually print out-of-date rubbish anyway.

 

[Ray Finkle]

New winter route to Innsbruck.

Weekly on Sundays with extra school holiday flights added.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Larnaca now bookable for winter. 2x weekly on Wed and Sun with a third Monday flight operating two weeks either side of Christmas, for the Feb school holidays then from March.

Venice looks to be dropped for Dec and Jan, it returns early Feb.

Lisbon has an extra Christmas flight added then goes back to 4x weekly in April.

Grenoble is 2x weekly.

 

[Brum X]

Great to see a new winter route from Monarch and also Cyprus finally released. I can remember cyprus was a concern for one of our fellow posters (no cyprus winter flights ex BHX) 🙂