Mission to bring home stranded Britons
HUNDREDS of thousands of Britons saw their holiday dreams ruined by the biggest ever collapse of a UK airline yesterday.
Monarch, which reported a £291million loss in August, called in the administrators early Monday.
The Government immediately ordered the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to organise the nation’s largest peacetime repatriation.
Over the next fortnight this will see 110,000 holidaymakers who are already abroad brought back to Britain at no extra cost.
The CAA has chartered 34 aircraft from 16 airlines which, it says, is the equivalent of operating one of the UK’s largest airlines.
But Monarch’s demise means 300,000 future bookings for about 750,000 people have been cancelled.
About half are guaranteed to get their money back because their flights or holidays had CAA’s Air Travel Organiser’s Licence (ATOL) protection.
But many others face having to claim back from their credit or debit card companies because Monarch dropped ATOL for its flights-only service last December.
Many Monarch passengers arrived at airports across the country before dawn only to be told the news.
In the scramble for alternative flights, passengers accused rival airlines of profiteering, with prices reportedly going up every minute as demand outstripped supply.
Mark Henson, 50, from Dover, who arrived at Luton airport at 4am for a flight to Portugal, accused companies of “money-making” out of “somebody else’s misery”.
Last night Transport Secretary Chris Grayling appealed to rival airlines to play fair with passengers.
A Department for Transport spokesman said: “We expect airlines, irrespective of whether they are members, to honour the International Air Transport Association agreement to make their best efforts to help passengers stranded away from home.
“These passengers should be provided access to discounted ‘rescue fares’, subject to available capacity, for up to two weeks after the event to anywhere within Europe.” Passengers also accused Monarch of continuing to sell tickets even after it had decided to close down.
The airline was still advertising flights on its website on Sunday, but CAA chief Andrew Haines said the regulator was first notified by Monarch of problems four and a half weeks ago.
He added: “Unfortunately we didn’t get final confirmation until 4am this morning and my understanding is that the board resolution to go into administration didn’t take place until close to midnight on Saturday night.”
Although he suggested that most passengers will get some sort of refund, he added: “Some people, I am sure, will have a really tough time.”
Yesterday a nurse from south London, who withheld her name, saw the price of her rebooked flight rise £60 in the time it took to complete the form.
She said: “It is scandalous that Monarch was allowed to carry on taking bookings when it is now clear the Government knew it was about to fold.”
Polo-playing Monarch boss Andrew Swaffield said the root cause of the airline’s plummeting revenues was the impact on tourism of terror attacks in Egypt and Tunisia, as well as the “decimation” of the tourist trade in Turkey.