Britain is rushing to help more than 100,000 travelers get back to the country after it suffered its largest ever airline collapse.
“This is an unprecedented response to an unprecedented situation,” British Transport Minister Chris Grayling said Monday, describing the response to the sudden bankruptcy of Monarch Airlines as “the country’s biggest ever peacetime repatriation.”
All Monarch flights to and from the U.K. have been canceled, said accounting firm KPMG, which has been appointed to manage the airline’s insolvency.
That leaves roughly 110,000 Monarch customers — whom the airline was meant to fly back to the U.K. in the next two weeks — stuck overseas, according to the country’s Civil Aviation Authority. The agency said it’s organizing replacement flights to bring the travelers home, describing the crisis as “the biggest ever U.K. airline failure.”
The aviation authority estimated that around 300,000 future bookings with Monarch, which flew to destinations around Europe and the Mediterranean, have also been canceled. It has set up a special website to help affected travelers at monarch.caa.co.uk.
“Mounting cost pressures and increasingly competitive market conditions in the European short-haul market have contributed to the Monarch Group experiencing a sustained period of trading losses,” said KPMG partner Blair Nimmo.
As well as the airline, Monarch’s tour group business has also gone bust. All future vacations with that business have been canceled.
“We understand that this will be a difficult and distressing time for many,” Nimmo said.
The collapse of Monarch comes after major difficulties at other European carriers.
Air Berlin, Germany’s second biggest airline, filed for bankruptcy in August. And Italy has put its struggling national airline, Alitalia, up for sale.
Ireland’s Ryanair, the biggest airline in Europe, has had to cancel thousands of flights because of a shortage of pilots.
— Elaine Ly contributed to this report.