Monarch Airlines ceased all operations this morning, Monday, October 2nd, with the Civil Aviation Authority now working to repatriate over 110,000 stranded holidaymakers.
An estimated 300,000 bookings will not be honoured and creditors will be forming an orderly queue as the airline plunges so deeply into debt it may take some suppliers down with it.
Monarch joins Air Berlin and Alitalia in filing for insolvency this year, or ‘seeking new investors’ as the airlines put it.
The impressively named Blair Nimmo, a partner at KPMG, will now be in charge of administering Monarch Airlines, Monarch Travel Group, First Aviation, Avro and Somewhere2stay, all Limited companies.
Monarch, headquartered at Luton Airport, was founded in 1968 and operates from bases at Gatwick, Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds Bradford to more than 40 destinations in an outside Europe.
The collapse leaves aircraft leasing companies in the lurch as the Monarch Airbus fleet of 36 is still being paid for and an order for 32 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft now will be dropped.
Monarch’s Chief Executive, Andrew Swaffield, sent a message to the company’s 2,750 employees, “We are working with the joint administrators and the CAA to do everything we possibly can to help minimise disruption where we can, but are under no illusion as to the problems this will cause. And many suppliers will suffer hugely as a result of our insolvency - for which I am equally sorry.”
The Civil Aviation Authority says it is taking action to get around 110,000 people back to UK - all flights from the UK have been cancelled and will not be rescheduled and that it has been asked by the government to charter up to 30 aircraft to bring passengers back at no extra cost and without cutting short their holiday.
Monarch was placed into administration after the failure of emergency talks with the Civil Aviation Authority over poor finances affecting its ATOL licence renewal.
The company had been granted a 24-hour extension to the licence by the Civil Aviation Authority, until midnight on October 1st but an announcement just after midnight stated that Monarch would cease operating immediately and all flights were cancelled.
The licence allowed Monarch to sell ATOL-protected holidays. The CAA confirmed over the weekend that this protection would remain for holiday bookings made on Sunday.
The CAA chief executive, Andrew Haines, commented, “We know that Monarch’s decision to stop trading will be very distressing for all of its customers and employees. This is the biggest UK airline ever to cease trading, so the government has asked the CAA to support Monarch customers currently abroad to get back to the UK at the end of their holiday at no extra cost to them.
“We are putting together, at very short notice and for a period of two weeks, what is effectively one of the UK’s largest airlifts to manage this task. The scale and challenge of this operation means that some disruption is inevitable. We ask customers to bear with us as we work around the clock to bring everyone home.”
Customers can check at monarch.caa.co.uk for information on flights back to the UK and other useful notes.
