Left high and dry

FIRST BA computers crashed in May, causing countless cancellations and delays. Next Ryanair scrapped huge numbers of flights. Now Monarch has left 860,000 customers high and dry.

Most shocking of all, many on Monarch’s package holidays are having to pay a second time for their accommodation, because the collapsed airline failed for months to pass on their money to the hotels.

One question: Where was the regulator when one airline after another comprehensively betrayed its customers?

As our City Editor argues on this page, the Civil Aviation Authority – headed by the ‘Queen of the Quangos’ Dame Deirdre Hutton – is simply unfit for purpose.

Nobody believes in private enterprise more strongly than the Mail. But if free markets are to work for the benefit of all, they must be firmly regulated.

Isn’t it high time to clear out the quangocrats of the Blairite era and bring in regulators who know their industry, have teeth – and are unafraid to bite?