Collapsed airline leaves 110k stranded

LONDON— British authorities are scrambling to bring home 110,000 travellers after Monarch Airlines collapsed Monday, cancelling all flights by what had been Britain’s fifth biggest carrier.

The Civil Aviation Authority said it has leased 30 aircraft to transport Monarch customers scattered around holiday destinations ranging from Turkey to Spain and Sweden. Flights will be provided at no additional cost to passengers.

“This is a hugely distressing situation for British holidaymakers abroad, and my first priority is to help them get back to the U.K.,” Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said in a statement. “That is why I have immediately ordered the country’s biggest ever peacetime repatriation to fly about 110,000 passengers who could otherwise have been left stranded.”

Some 860,000 customers in all are affected, with 750,000 with future bookings.

Monarch ceased operations after failing to reach a deal with regulators to extend its license to sell package holidays to overseas destinations. Monarch CEO Andrew Swaffield said the airline’s troubles stemmed from recent terror attacks in Egypt and Tunisia and the “decimation” of the tourist trade in Turkey.

The airline had tried to pivot from short-haul flights to long-haul travel to reduce losses as consumers shied away from Middle Eastern and North African destinations after the June 2015 attack at a resort in Tunisia, the bombing of a Russian airliner near Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, a few months later and the attempted coup in Turkey in 2016.