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Monarch Scheduled Birmingham service to Malaga sets new standards

We recently took the opportunity to use Monarch Schedule’s flight service from Birmingham to Malaga for a quick long weekend break away from our disappointing Spring weather back in England.

Monarch Scheduled  (flymonarch.com) make the claim that they are how other low cost airlines should be and after our experience of this service we cannot argue with that. Generally I have always had a good service on all of the low cost airlines and have mostly been amazed at what remarkable value they all are. All are very competitively priced and easy to compare and book over the Internet from the comfort of your home, so apart from the obvious criteria of price, how can one airline set itself apart from the rest and be the one that passengers would choose first?  Some airlines make the point of being “no frills” and cutting right back on the extras like in flight meals that always used to be the norm on all flights, thereby keeping the costs down to an absolute minimum. I am all for this if it gives passengers the choice and opportunity to book great value fights and lets face it you don’t always want a meal on a flight.

What Monarch have managed to achieve however is to somehow combine the pricing of a low cost airline along with a much higher standard of service and options than you could realistically expect. Some of the most obvious points are:

• You have the option of buying a hot meal on the aircraft as well as the usual sandwiches and snacks. You don’t have to have one so the basic fares still stay low but you have the choice. They were very good value as well. £5.00 gets you a wide choice of main meals including a “healthy option” that is suitable for vegetarians. We had this and also the main meal which was a small salad starter, beef in a Dianne sauce along with roast potatoes and vegetables, roll and butter, chocolate dessert, and cheese and biscuits. Tea or coffee is also served with all meals. Very nice and quite amazing for only £5.
• Free newspapers – again, not an essential but a nice little extra touch that would add next to nothing to the cost of your flight but which makes it feel far more like a full scheduled flight. We were certainly glad of this little extra on the return flight as due to industrial action by French air traffic control we had a delay of an hour on the ground in the aircraft at Malaga while we queued for our amended air traffic slot. Catching up on what had happened while we had been away certainly helped pass the time as did the …
• Free in flight entertainment – one benefit of the enforced delay was that we were able to watch a full length feature film as opposed to the selection of recorded TV shows that the normal shorter flight time dictates. Many airlines I have flown with, if they do provide in flight entertainment (which most low cost airlines don’t) make a small charge for the use of the headphones to listen to the entertainment, but again with Monarch these were free.

Clearly the delay was beyond either Monarch or Malaga Airports control and both managed to lessen the inconvenience to the passengers as far as possible, but it did serve to illustrate how the option of having a hot meal, and the provision of free newspapers to read and free in flight entertainment can make a big difference on even a flight of only a few hours.

Another point worth highlighting was the standard and appearance of the cabin crew. Despite the fact that they too were obviously suffering the consequences of the French industrial action, they were always very pleasant and efficient and did all they could to make things as comfortable as possible for the passengers. That is their job I know, but you really could not fault them and they did seem pleased to be of service.

So what of Malaga itself? The airport serves as the gateway to the Costa Del Sol and the whole of Andalucia, and we stayed at an apartment just outside Fuengirola. We know that part of the world fairly well and as we were travelling light made use of the excellent local train that runs between Malaga itself and Fuengirola, stopping at the airport and all the main places along the coast. This is an absolutely brilliant service that is cheap (1.86 Euros from the airport to Fuengirola) always clean and on time (every half hour) and uses very modern comfortable air conditioned trains. Highly recommended. A couple of hundred yards stroll gets you from the train station to the main bus station in Fuengirola where we stepped on a bus for the short journey to the apartment on El Faro that we were staying at.

El Faro is one of the many individual “urbanisations” all along the coast. It has been established for longer than many of the others and so in some ways has a more finished feel to it. It isn’t too sprawling and has an attractive mix of properties from very nice apartments to dream villas.

Is it worth a visit? Well it certainly is at almost any time of the year as the well known popularity and diversity of the region clearly shows. What this trip vividly demonstrated to us though is that now with the services like Monarchs easily available, even a trip of just a couple of days is affordable and well worth doing. We tried to do this “on a budget.” We only needed hand luggage for a couple of days which was a nice change from the usual baggage.

The cost of the airport car parking for just 3 days was negligible and easily booked through   on the Internet. (very reasonable price, but allow a good half an hour for the transfer) and the flight and service from Monarch was faultless. An easy and enjoyable journey both ways, even with the French disruption, and we had two and a half days in a perfect location with perfect weather with just a few hours travelling each way. All this for only what you might expect to pay for many a long weekend in the UK. The weekend is probably best summed up by a comment I overheard a little girl of about 9 or 10 years old make while we were by the pool at the apartment. Someone asked why she was laughing and she replied “I’m not laughing, I’m just smiling because the sky is so blue, the pool is so lovely, and I’m so happy” I couldn’t have put it better myself.