Monarch Group, a UK-based scheduled leisure airline, has announced plans for major investments in staff training and new aircraft as part of its customer service improvement efforts.
Speaking at the UK Aviation Club, the group’s executive chairman, Ian Rawlinson, said that all Monarch employees would participate in an Olympics-inspired training programme to enhance customer service.
‘It is good to see other travel groups following Monarch’s lead on customer service. For over 50 years Monarch has believed that customers should feel that, after safety, their comfort is our first priority. This is why we have begun a programme to have all of our 3,000 employees undergo the Olympics-inspired WorldHost training programme that was used to train volunteers for the London 2012 Olympics,’
Mr. Rawlinson also announced plans for an extensive fleet renewal to deliver 60 new jets to replace some existing aircraft and more than double its current fleet in Birmingham by 2020. Monarch is currently in the final stages of a tender process with Airbus, Boeing and Bombardier to re-equip its short-haul fleet, with the intention of delivering Europe’s youngest fleet by 2021, with an average aircraft age of three years.
Mr. Rawlinson said: ‘Our industry should be one where customers are valued and have choice. It should be an industry which is respected, safe, offers true value and where customers come first. Customers do not return if they’re treated as second class citizens.
‘Our values revolve round the customer always coming first. We may have been modest in talking about it at Monarch but our renewed emphasis on this goal, across all our businesses, is quite deliberate. We see this as merely taking the DNA of the Monarch Group and putting it on show. It is part of a strategy where customers are valued and have choice, are respected, safe, offered true value and where customers come first.’
Monarch has also recently completed construction of a major 110,000 sq ft maintenance depot at Birmingham Airport. It will complement Monarch’s existing heavy maintenance facilities in the UK at London Luton and Manchester Airports.
One of the few depots to offer maintenance facilities for the new Boeing Dreamliner globally, the new Birmingham facility is expected to create more than 200 jobs, The Birmingham Mail said in its report.
