Monarch charter to Goa

[Dee Sa]

Yesterday my husband flew alone Gatwick/Goa on a direct Monarch charter flight, he is now reg blind but was sighted before and did a lot of long distance flying in his job.
He did pay for Premium class though, and has phoned me to say the crew were absolutely marvellous to him, better that Virgin [who are also good], the food was better and he would recommend to anyone disabled flying alone.

[paddywak]

I've got to agree, Dee I flew premium class to Goa several times with Monarch, and found the service to be excellant, with the cabin crew being willing to helping in any way they could. As to the meals, they were without doubt the best meals I've ever had on a charter.

[jno]

I guess they look after people the way they would an unacocmpanied minor. Monarch are pretty good, and I believe even in economy they give you more room than BA.

Had my heart in my mouth when I read your first sentence there, Dee Sa - it sounded as if he flew the plane himself...

[Dee Sa]

many tks for comments and feedback, sorry jno about my grammar/way with words.
Last year we flew together [in a charter plane]
with Airtours to Goa and came back on xmas eve into Gatwick around 9pm, being the festive season the crew were making buttons to leave and said they would help us off the plane with our hand luggage and sat us down on the nearest avaible seats and said the airport disabled team were on their way with a wheelchair as husband cant walk very far and they left us high and dry. After 1 whole hour and not seeing a soul, I left him to seek help, the airport was almost deserted and all the wheelchairs were chained together, eventually I found one near the luggage carousel and took it back to collect him by now it was 11.15pm and the airport was really deserted and quite scary.What got me was that you go through approx 30 unseen camera checks before you reach customs, so somebody working the monitors must have seen us really struggle. Well Airtours blamed the wheelchair people, they said they had not been requested to help etc etc, Gatwick overall manager sent us a flowery reply which told us nothing and Air Tours sent us a �25 voucher - tks but no tks -- we will use Monarch in future.
What we should have done was refuse to leave the aircraf until the wheelchair arrived, we were too trusting, but have learnt our lesson.

[jno]

that's bad, Dee Sa - so glad your husband was treated better this time. That's the sort of thing I'd write to the papers about - the Telegraph and the Sunday Times both have sections on their travel pages where people can write in about bad experiences, and others may do too

[Dee Sa]

We did get published in a disabled for London mag [ cant remember the exact name].It was the star letter and showed a picture of a deserted airport. Its an experience we never want to repeat, just say hubby was travelling alone, how long would he have sat there ? the place was deserted as we made our way--slowly-took ages me pushing and the hand luggage- to the luggage carousel- we did not see a single soul.
I did email Gill Charlton of the Telegraph but they did not publish.
I went to the info desk once outside in arivals, they just gave me the disabled extension number and they were very offhand and put the phone down on me !
Welcome home to Britain I said to myself !