Monarch collapses - Flight Only / Airline and Airports, Holiday Forums

Monarch collapses

Lance Chambers

2017-10-02 05:18:21

Monarch has ceased trading with immediate effect

Monarch Airlines has ceased trading with immediate effect, leaving 110,000 customers overseas and in the region of 300,000 future bookings cancelled.

Government has asked CAA to charter more than 30 aircraft to bring back to the UK Monarch Airlines customers currently overseas

Monarch customers in the UK and yet to travel: don't go to the airport. There will be no more Monarch flights

Monarch customers abroad: everyone due to fly in the next fortnight will be brought back to the UK at no cost to them. There is no need to cut short your stay

All affected customers should check new website monarch.caa.co.uk for more information

All future Monarch Airlines bookings, including flights and holidays, have now been cancelled following a decision by the company's board to stop trading.

This is the UK's largest ever airline to enter administration. As all of Monarch's flights due to depart from the UK have now been cancelled, customers should not go to their UK airport. Affected customers still in the UK should check monarch.caa.co.uk for further information.

Due to the unprecedented number of UK consumers currently overseas who are affected by this airline administration, the CAA and Government are securing a fleet of more than 30 aircraft, flying to more than 30 airports, to bring 110,000 people back to the UK at no cost to them. This is the equivalent of operating, at very short notice, one of the UK's largest airlines.

The CAA has a dedicated website monarch.caa.co.uk, which is the best source of advice and information for affected customers, and a 24 hour helpline (0300 303 2800 from in the UK and Ireland, and +44 1753 330330 from overseas) to provide additional assistance.

Customers currently overseas should check monarch.caa.co.uk for confirmation of their new flight details which will be available as soon as possible in advance of their original departure time. This website will be frequently updated with the latest information.

Customers currently overseas shouldn't go to the airport unless their flight back to the UK has been confirmed on monarch.caa.co.uk

I have a future booking and have not travelled yetInformation for Monarch customers who have yet to travel

Customers We are sorry to inform you that as of 2 October 2017 all holidays and flights booked with Monarch Airlines and Monarch Holidays are now cancelled and customers should not go to the airport.

This includes the following companies and trading names:

Monarch Airlines Ltd
Monarch Holidays Ltd (ATOL Number 2275)
First Aviation Ltd (ATOL Number 488 previously trading as Monarch Airlines
Avro Ltd (ATOL Number 1939)
Somewhere2stay Ltd

Please follow the advice below on claiming a refund for your booking.

Flights booked directly with Monarch Airlines from 15 December 2016 onward
Customers with these bookings are not ATOL protected and are not entitled to make a claim to the CAA. You are advised to contact your card issuer, insurer or PayPal for advice on how to claim a refund.

Flights booked on or before 14 December 2016 directly with First Aviation Ltd trading as Monarch Airlines

If your flight was booked with Monarch Airlines on or before 14 December 2016 and you received an ATOL Certificate stating that your flight is protected with First Aviation, you are ATOL protected. We are making arrangements for refunds to be made as soon as possible to these UK customers.

We will be providing more information on how you should claim shortly. You will be able to submit a claim when we make the Monarch claim form available. Please do not submit a claim until advised to do so.Bookings made directly with Monarch Airlines from 15 December 2016 onward are not protected by ATOL. For further information please read how do I know if I am ATOL protected.

Holidays booked directly with Monarch Holidays

Customers booked directly with Monarch Holidays are ATOL protected and will have received an ATOL Certificate when they made their booking. We are making arrangements for refunds to be made on these bookings as soon as possible, and we aim to complete this by the end of 2017 at the latest. We will be providing more information on how you should claim shortly. You will be able to submit a claim when we make the Monarch claim form available. Please do not submit a claim until you are advised to do so.

Monarch flights and Monarch Holidays booked through another travel company or travel agentIf you booked a flight or holiday with another travel company or travel agent you should contact them directly about your arrangements. They will be responsible for arranging a new flight or providing a refund for your booking. Please do not submit a claim to the CAA.

Edited by Lance Chambers 2017-10-02 05:23:19

brewerdave

2017-10-02 08:23:19

I feel for the poor customers turning up at airports first thing today to be greeted by this.
My s-i-l has just messaged-she was due to fly back end of October with Monarch from Lanzarote - the agent has promised to try to find substitute -but I am very gloomy about the expected extra costs.

Edited by brewerdave 2017-10-03 09:28:37

andy66

2017-10-02 21:16:46

Heard brief news on the radio today about the monarch collapse and they had one guy on the phone in who had booked flights with Ryanair to Fuerteventura that had been cancelled and then he had rebooked with monarch with his debit card and obviously now cancelled , so has now booked with Thomson , to say he has spent a lot of money and had a lot of stress too in just booking a holiday flight .

I've read that perhaps slots will be picked up by Wizz air , easyjet and Norwegian hopefully pilots and crew may find employment with these airlines too as monarch used Airbus craft and so do the others except Norwegian .

brewerdave

2017-10-03 09:30:46

Already seen stories of people already out on Monarch holiday packages , being told that they have to pay for hotel again - I suspect that hoteliers are worried that CAA will not pick up all of Monarch's liabilities.

Fiona

2017-10-03 11:09:04

Not good.

Glynis HT Admin

2017-10-03 21:23:09

Tour operators and travel agents will be asked to foot some of the estimated £60 million cost of bringing 110,000 Monarch customers back to the UK following the tour operator's collapse.

Credit card companies will also be asked by the Department for Transport to pick up a chunk of the cost of the UK's largest ever peacetime repatriation programme.

So far, the Civil Aviation Authority has brought back almost 12,000 customers and it expects to bring back a further 11,647 on 58 flights today. Its flying programme will continue until October 15.

The CAA said it was 'working round the clock', in conjunction with the government, to deliver the replacement flying programme, which has seen it charter 34 planes to fly passengers back from more than 30 airports across Europe.

A spokesman said it had organised the repatriation of all 110,000 customers abroad at the time of the company's collapse, even though only 5% of them - those who had bought packages - were covered by its ATOL, at the government's request.

The DfT said it was hoping to split the bill with credit card customers and third-party tour operators and travel agents who had bought seats on Monarch to put together their own packages.

"The third-party tour operators are likely to be more specialist companies, and there are possibly some travel agents too who have bought seats on Monarch," said the CAA spokesman.

"It is early days yet and we don't have a breakdown of costs so we don't want to speculate on what commitment will be from the trade.

"All our efforts at the moment are to get customers back to the UK."

A DfT spokesman said: "We don't know yet what percentage of the cost will be shared with others. At the moment we are working to get customers back home."

However, the DfT's intervention in the Monarch collapse has led some industry figures to question the value of ATOL. In a Facebook post, Bedswithease sales director Paul Riches pointed out that if the government is prepared to repatriate for free airline customers without ATOL protection, it begs the question what is the point of ATOL in the first place.

Several others agreed with his social media post, with one saying: "Doesn't seem fare for charter airlines to pay for ATOL cover and low cost airlines customers, if they go under, get repatriated with the money!"

In defence of the ATOL system, the CAA spokesman said there are 300,000 forward bookings with Monarch that are protected by the company's licence.

Courtesy of Travelmole

fwh

2017-10-04 21:09:24

Just for the fun of it all we flew to Tenerife last friday on a thomson/fc holiday with Monarch. Rep just waffles on that we will get home. Not worried and just enjoying our holiday.

Sanji

2017-10-05 08:02:33

This was posted in my hotel in the CDS, as soon as the news broke.

Sorry it's a bit awkward to read the small text, you'll have to zoom in, the notice is sellotaped down on the TUI desk and an halogen light above casted a shadow over it when I placed my tablet near it.

Sanji x

Edited by Sanji 2017-10-05 08:19:43

Glynis HT Admin

2017-10-05 09:09:27

Reassuring for those booked with Monarch 👍 Tui 👍

Sanji

2017-10-05 16:58:06

I was sad to hear the news about Monarch, it used to be my favourite airline travelling from Manchester Airport, but then we found the journey over the Pennines to Manchester from South Yorkshire a pain, either due to the traffic or the weather in the winter months.

In those days you wouldn't have referred to it as a low cost airline, it prided itself on the 'Crown Service'..... And whilst there's not a lot you can say about airline food, I found the food to be one of the best.... if not THE best amongst the UK carriers.

We switched to East Midlands Airport and had several years flying with Bmibaby, I was sorry to see them go too because whilst they were classed as a low cost airline, they had a superb group of people working for the company...always going the extra mile to help people and be cheerful, and I was never delayed either.

When Bmibaby folded, Monarch rushed into EMA to grab the slots without any aircraft. That year was disastrous with regards to their public relations and consequently customer confidence in the airline because of their decision to wet lease from Small Planet Airways. There were a lot of angry customers who vowed never to fly with Monarch again.

I was one of those angry customers because I'd booked my flight as soon as they announced that they were moving into EMA and I'd paid a fair price... And whilst I'm aware that 'wet-leasing' sometimes happens, you expect a similar standard of aircraft....... I wasn't expecting to be travelling on a 23 year old dilapidated crate with a foreign crew.
What made me so angry was that they waited until 2 days before departure to inform me that it wouldn't be a Monarch plane and they didn't name the carrier in the the email notification, which BTW was in breach of an EU directive.

Doncaster Airport was developed from an abandoned military airforce base (Finningley), although they had maintained the runway..... And now that's my preferred airport, just as long as Thomson don't pull out.

Here's my rant from 5 years ago 😁 and no, I never flew with Monarch again.

http://www.holidaytruths.co.uk/forum/what-hell-are-monarch-playing-at-t156876-0.html

Still so sorry to see Monarch go, best wishes to the employees.

Sanji x

Edited by Sanji 2017-10-05 17:15:20
Typo error

Glynis HT Admin

2017-10-10 14:27:09

Pilots demand government probe into Monarch collapse

Monarch pilots are demanding the government investigates the circumstances surrounding the collapse of Monarch after reports that Boeing injected cash into the ailing company's offshore account, Petrol Jersey, last year.

The call from the pilots' union BALPA for a probe into the financial bailout comes as transport secretary Chris Grayling announced that he is considering reforms which will mean failed airlines such as Monarch can 'wind down in an orderly manner'.

Grayling told MPs he was keen to avoid a repeat of the Monarch collapse, which sparked the biggest ever peace time repatriation of Britons stranded overseas, at a cost of £60 million to the government, some of which it is attempting to recoup from third-party tour operators and travel agents who had bought seats on Monarch flights.

Grayling told the Commons that the government would examine any necessary reforms to ensure passengers 'do not find themselves in this position again'.

He added: "We need to look at all the options... whether it's possible for airlines to be able to wind down in an orderly manner and look after their customers themselves without the need for the government to step in.

"We'll be putting a lot of effort into this in the months ahead."

Meanwhile BALPA, which represents the 400 Monarch pilots who lost their jobs when the airline collapsed last week, says they 'want to know the truth about the sale of Monarch to Greybull Capital in 2014'.

It also wants the government to look into the role of the company's former financial backers, the Swiss-based Mantegazza family.

The sale of Monarch by the Mantegazza's to Greybull meant pilots had to accept 30% paycuts and 'huge pension losses', it said.

BALPA also wants the govermment to investigate a £165 million bailout of Monarch last year, which was initially thought to have been funded by Greybull but is now reported to have come from Boeing.

It says pilots also want to know the truth about the airline's self-declared insolvency on October 2 'when it appears it could still have operated'.

BALPA general secretary Brian Strutton said: "Monarch pilots made huge pay and pensions sacrifices in 2014 to help Monarch turn itself around only to find that this was all in vain.

"They feel they did this simply to protect the financiers and they have been sacrificed in the process.

"There is a lot of understandable anger which, on the basis of recent reports, does seem to have some justification and there are concerns this mirrors the Philip Green/BHS pension stitch up.

"In addition, there are hundreds of thousands of Monarch customers who want to know what happened and why they were still being sold flights on 1 October when the company Board had already decided it was going into administration.

"For all these reasons, I believe the House of Commons Transport Committee should urgently investigate all the circumstances and make its findings public."

Courtesy of Travelmole

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