NewbieRunner

"...the CAA (UK's Civil Aviation Authority) had been putting together contingency plans over the last four and a half weeks, but only had a “clear indication” that Monarch was about to go into administration late on Saturday night."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...administration

Monarch's ATOL licence expired on Saturday night but had been extended twice. The accountant KPMG chose 4am on Monday morning to announce the news when no Monarch flight was up in the air.

Flying back 110,000 passengers currently abroad will be UK's biggest peacetime repatriation programme.

babunny

its Ł100 + total bill. My flight was Ł93 + bags+seat. I have not VAT receipt, only the email confirmation that has it all rounded up to a total fee of over Ł100.

Spoke to Amex this morning. over the phone form filled out 6-8 weeks before return of funds. Excellent service

MSPeconomist

It's been discussed in a thread in the BA forum, with some people there predicting yesterday that Monarch would cease operations within 24 hours.

HIDDY

A shame but hardly a surprise.

babunny

Now what is interesting is the responses from the CAA.

If you're abroad and travelling home on or before 15th Oct the CAA will get you home on rescue flights.

If you in the UK and have future flights on monarch look to get a refund from ATOL, Credit card companies or Holiday Insurance....

....but according to Alex Macheras, Aviation Analyst for SKY & BBC, who has had a one-2-one with the CAA on this very scenario he has tweeted that

if you are still in the UK, flying out on another airline, but flying back with Monarch before the 15th October, don't panic because the CAA will get you home on a rescue flight!!!


I am in the UK right now, tomorrow I fly to Spain on Jet2, My return flights on 11th October are with Monarch. I have just asked Amex for a refund and booked return flights with Easyjet and now you tell me I could have got a rescue flight home??????

That to me doesn't sound logical at all. CAA to say 'We are here to save stranded passengers but those who make themselves stranded, we'll help them too/??? Surely not?

comments please, because I cant understand this at all!!!

irishguy28

You would be advised to check the Monarch CAA website, where your query - and most possible questions that affected customers may have - is answered.

Your interpretation of customers who "make themselves stranded" is a rather strange one. No such passenger knowingly or willingly put themselves in a position of being "stranded" - and it is now impossible for anyone to knowingly/willingly put themselves in such a position.

If a customer has a valid booking on any other carrier to get them to their destination, why should they not travel?

The CAA will not bring people FROM the UK, but will bring anyone with a valid booking TO the UK up to the notified cut-off date.

Sixth Freedom

A great shame to see Monarch go. They were the first airline to carry me across the Atlantic (from Manchester, UK to Orlando, Florida via Bangor, Maine in 1991). I remember listening to "only rock and roll" on channel 9 of the audio IFE westbound and then the children's channel, also on channel 9, heading back home.

Then I did another return trip with them from Manchester, UK to Salzburg, Austria in 1993 to go skiing. They had Cilla Black reading stories on the audio player, which was epic.

All that said, the Commercial Director wrote to me on 6-Feb-13 "we have actually a very strong rev-man and pricing team and capability in place" - clearly not...

NeilP

Some friends came home today on a chartered plane for monarch. Received this letter upon landing.

Often1

That seems a reasonable request. Taxpayers ultimately pay the cost of this mess and, to the extent that there is a private means to defray these costs, HMG has an obligation to attempt that.

NewbieRunner

An interesting article which explains how problems in Egypt, Turkey and Tunisia in recent years adversely affected Monarch, which was forced to concentrate on the more competitive European market.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/ne...-egypt-turkey/

AAtticus

4+ years is massive in commercial aviation pricing modelling.

RajStevenson

I stumbled across this article if you're interested...

Lays it all out very nicely

www.thelondonspotter.co.uk/monarch-whatwentwrong

fruitcage

OK - about to reveal myself as incredibly naive I'm sure, but I can't help asking why Monarch's own planes and crews can't still be used (under the ultimate control of the CAA or whoever) to fly the stranded passengers home. From a common-sense point of view, it seems daft to ground a whole fleet of perfectly good planes and simultaneously have to mount a massive operation to charter in the capacity.

or to put it another way - is there really no way that the wind-down of Monarch could not have been slightly smoother?

I'm sure there are good accounting a legal reasons why not but I would be grateful if I could learn something here.

jt82

Shame for those affected, but can't say I'll miss Monarch, easily the worst airline I've ever used

wrp96

If the reason they can't operate is because they can't pay their bills and are operating at a loss, then how will the lease payments be made to continue operating the planes (I believe they only actually owned one plane), and how will they pay the crew to continue flying, and the engineers to continue maintenance, etc? It's probably cheaper to charter from other airlines than to continue to allow them to operate at a loss, incurring more debt.