Monarch Airlines

RED_LYON_LADY

Today on the finance pages of the Daily Mail, pg51, there is an article about the airline being in some financial difficulty and a possibility of administrators being ready to step in if it is not taken over. They are also talking a out 1000 job cuts, charter flights being ditched and a reduction in there fleet of airlines.

Has anyone any information on this as we are in the process of considering booking flights with them and wonder if we should be looking at another airline.
We have used them many times before but are now concerned at their present situation . Any advice would be appre iated.

whatmichaelsays

Reading a few sources, it seems that they are looking to restructure to attract investment.

That, in itself, doesn't mean that there are financial problems. It could be that the business is simply looking for efficiencies to make itself attractive to investors. That's a perfectly normal process and plenty of very profitable businesses go through it at some point.

Unfortunately, I doubt you'll get the sort of concreate answer you're looking for on a web forum. If you do book, use a credit card. At the very least, you'll have S75 protection.

bagand96

Pretty much what the poster above says, you'll only really get here what you can find publically anyway as well as people's opinions on top. Anyone who knows any more (either by being a Monarch employee or involved in their finance) won't be discussing such matters on web forums.

They announced an order with Boeing for 30 new aircraft and are looking for new finance. That much is publicly known. The airline has been privately owned for decades and the speculation is the current owners don't want to shoulder a massive cash injection on their own.

They are restructuring any losing a few aircraft this winter (closing their East Midlands base has already been announced). Also all routes have been under review with some not on sale for next year.

Airlines restructuring, and even shrinking is nothing new and doesn't mean they're in desperate trouble. Flybe were in a similar position a couple of years ago and are still changing, but general consensus is their turnaround is working. It's better than some previous airlines who just expanded and expanded in a market with overcapacity, selling seats cheaper than it costs to operate until one day there's no money left (I.e. XL, flyglobespan)

111KAB

They actually announced an intention to enter into an order with Monarch however this has not yet been ratified. They have a pension black hole of £158 million and Greybull Capital are rumoured to be considering a £70 million injection. Greybull incidentally were involved in the Comet Electrical 'bail out' and have recently gone through a similar exercise with Riley Snooker.


The Monarch accounts make no provision for 261/2004 contingent liability. Currently they are renegotiating terms with their staff from pilots down with a suggested cut back of around a third of their work force. They have pulled out of charter flights and state they will no longer be involved in long haul. Their current fleet of 42 planes is to be cut back to 30. They will no longer operate from the East Midlands and Leeds Bradford is under review.

richardw

I'd avoid booking a Monarch flight that isn't the first flight of the day to be operated by a locally based aircraft in low/medium season, otherwise your chances of delay are too high.

111KAB

http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/Articles/2014/09/24/49454/monarch-hopes-600-staff-will-choose-voluntary-redundancy.html

richardw

I wonder if BHX-PMI is a 'longer' short haul route that they will concentrate on, or is it too short?

111KAB

IMO this article sums up the current Monarch position - a few mistakes within the text aside ...


http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/sep/25/monarch-airline-prince-pauper

richardw

Yes, well written and some good points.

Voyager2002

RED_LYON_LADY wrote: »

Today on the finance pages of the Daily Mail, pg51, there is an article about the airline being in some financial difficulty and a possibility of administrators being ready to step in if it is not taken over. They are also talking a out 1000 job cuts, charter flights being ditched and a reduction in there fleet of airlines.

Has anyone any information on this as we are in the process of considering booking flights with them and wonder if we should be looking at another airline.
We have used them many times before but are now concerned at their present situation . Any advice would be appre iated.

Whenever there has been an article in the Mail about a topic a know about, there have been very serious errors in the article. So my advice is to do what you have done, and seek reliable information.

TUL105

A family member works at a local airport and has daily contact with Monarch. Their colleagues have received direct intel from monarch Hq, just down the road, stating the airline is indeed in trouble.