Monarch Holidays reports resurgence in Greece and Turkey bookings

Monarch Holidays has reported a resurgence in bookings to Greece and Turkey.

The operator’s head of product and commercial, Gemma Day, said demand for the western Mediterranean was still strong in line with the rest of the market but the eastern Med was “bouncing back”.

Bookings to Turkey are up 90% for the operator while Greece was up nearly 70% year on year.

Last month Thomas Cook revealed Greece had become its top-selling destination, with 2.5 million passenger booked for this summer. The destination was up by 40% on last year and was its “single biggest selling destination so far”.

Day said Monarch’s Finnish Lapland programme had also performed well with December sales up 24% year-on-year.

Flights from Gatwick to Kittila in northern Finland were extended for six weeks during the winter 2016/17 season and will be again for the 2017/18 season. Flights from Manchester will also be extended for winter 2017/18. Day said the operator is considering adding further accommodation options.

In February, Monarch Airlines launched four new routes for summer 2017 from Birmingham. Twice weekly services will operate to Split in Croatia, Valencia in Spain, Naples in Italy and a weekly service will operate to Rhodes in Greece.

Day said Monarch had more destinations to choose from than any other airline when flying out of Birmingham this summer.