Review of Monarch Airlines flight from London to Rome in Economy

rome rome roma

Hello everyone and welcome to this archives from a previous visit to the eternal city.
I paid this trip £99 for the one way ticket with Monarch, and if it wasn't so cheap, it was cheaper than anyother airlines for this time of the year. 

Monarch was a true landmark in the British travel world, having flown many Britons abroad since the 1950s and it was a true shock when it collapsed, a bit like what we felt for Thomas Cook. 

I do not have enougth pictures of the way back with EZY I am afraid, and I guess it is not as interesting as defunct airline..
 
Checking in on Monarch Website was quite fast and efficient.

If the trains tickets to Luton are fairly cheap compares to those for Stansted or the Gatwick Express, the journey is really longer and not that pleasant.

You first arrive at a very small station called Luton Parkway.
The station is not designed for hundreds of passengers - here is the unique shop.

What is worse is that you need to queue for a good 20 min before finally boarding a bus shuttle that will take you to the bus bays of the National Express services at Luton Airport. 

The journey is about 10 min more so you AT LEAST need to plan a good 30 min of contingency time that you wouldn't plan with any other London airport. 

Once arriving at Luton airport, you are facing a massive dock hall that might as well be a truck garage. In this garage are usually long queues for security.

You can notice how heavily decorated the hall is. 

The airport features this very very densed food court, where just a very shops are, and a lot of lenghty and empty corridors leading to the gates.

Pret a manger, Bella Italia,  WHSmith are present and amongst the premium offerings.

Time for boarding. The particularity of Luton is that once at the gates, you need to go down just like as if you were leaving a shoping centre to walk back on the pavement… And the plane is there in front of you!

I was told off for taking pcitures I apologise for the blurry pic.

onboard the a320

The famous yellow cabin crew outfit.

Aircraft: Airbus A320-214
Registration: G-MRJK
Engines: 2x CFM56
Age: XX Years
Layout: Y174 (in comparison Easyjet fits 186 seats)

Let's go and taxi! 

We were followed by another Monarch bird.

And take off!

Flying over the channel

and passed the Alps..

And the approach after a boring 2 hours onboard…

The famous magazine review… Nice to see that the airline was already offering some digital press review.

Bye bye A300s!

The network was clearly targeting sunny destinations, but somewhat very poor comparing to the EZY one.

And finally… how do you know this is Loz cost airline magazine???

Spoilers and full reverse on 16L runway.

at rome - leonardo da vinci - fiumicino airport

We were taxiing towards our gate… Not sure why but at this time most of the low-cost airlines were parked at the E satellite, where some Long haul planes were also operating.

After a quick hop on the transit train service, we arrived at the T3, but you need to go upstairs, at the departure levels, to get to the train station. 

In case you wonder why the airport is named after Leonardo Da Vinci! 

Finally a few pictures from this trip..
Of course the main Forum, and on the background the Palatine hill, where the Empereur palace was (yes the word Palace is coming from this hill!) 

If you walk towards Campo de Fiori you can see a few houses that were casually built on some Roman constructions… This blew my mind!

The AirBnB where I was staying..

And finally a bit of french territory with the Academie de France at the Medecis villa.