Six weeks after the collapse of Air Berlin, another low-cost airline has bit the dust: UK airline Monarch has gone into administration. The company today announced the cancellation of all of its flights. Maman Cargo Terminals and Handling (TASE: MMAN), which represents Monarch in Israel, was totally surprised by the announcement, and its representatives said Monarch had only recently approved a special ad campaign for Israel costing tens of thousands of dollars.
Monarch has thousands of employees, and has been doing business for 50 years. The privately owned company is a major wholesaler of tourist services in the UK. One of its owners is the Greybull Capital fund.
It is believed that several hundred Israelis were affected by the halt in Monarch's activity.
After having previously conducted flights to Israel and then discontinuing them, Monarch resumed its business in Israel in December 2015, recently operating three flights a week from Ben Gurion Airport to London and three to Manchester. The company was also operating a winter flight from Eilat to London.
Monarch operates flights to over 100 destinations in Europe. Its home base is at London Luton Airport, with secondary bases in Manchester, Birmingham, and London Gatwick Airport.
Monarch carried 10,000 passengers on its routes from Israel in August, 18% more than in August 2016. These numbers are not large in comparison with other low-cost airlines. All of its flights took place as scheduled until last Friday, when the company tweeted advertisements for the coming fall season on its Twitter account. These notices were replaced today by notices calling for passengers not to come to UK airports, in view of the general cancellation of all Monarch flights.
After the company announced that in accordance with UK aviation laws, it was taking care of UK residents first, it released a message that may partly pacify Israeli passengers saying from October 2 until October 16, it would bring all passengers outside the UK borders to the UK. The airline said that a plane would take off at 11:00 PM from Ben Gurion Airport in place of the originally scheduled 10:15 PM flight, and that there would be a British Embassy representative on all of these flights. Israeli passengers on these flights, however, will have to make their own arrangements for flights back to Israel, and will not receive refunds for the flights they booked.
Published by Globes [online], Israel Business News - www.globes-online.com - on October 2, 2017
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