Monarch Airlines has ceased trading and its 300,000 future bookings for flights and holidays have been cancelled, the Civil Aviation Authority has said.
About 110,000 customers are currently overseas and the government has asked the CAA to charter more than 30 planes to bring them back to the UK.
The process is the UK’s “biggest ever peacetime repatriation”, Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said.
Monarch employs about 2,100 people and reported a £291m loss last year.
The airline – the UK’s fifth biggest and the country’s largest ever to go into administration – collapsed at 04:00 BST, while passengers were at airports.
The airline reported a loss of £291m for the year to October 2016, compared with a profit of £27m for the previous 12 months, after revenues slumped.
It had been in last-ditch talks with the CAA about renewing its licence to sell package holidays and had until midnight on Sunday to reach a deal, but failed to do so.
Advice to Monarch customers, issued by the CAA
- Customers in the UKyet to travel: Don’t go to the airport
- Customers abroad: Everyone due to fly in the next fortnight will be brought back to the UK at no cost to them. There is no need to cut short a stay
- Customers currently overseas should check monarch.caa.co.uk for confirmation of their new flight details – which will be available a minimum of 48 hours in advance of their original departure time
- All affected customers should keep checking monarch.caa.co.uk for more information
- The CAA also has a 24-hour helpline: 0300 303 2800 from the UK and Ireland and +44 1753 330330 from overseas
What have the authorities said?
The CAA said the situation was “unprecedented”, but the 110,000 customers currently overseas would be returned home at no additional cost to them.
Dame Deirdre Hutton, chairwoman of the authority, said there would inevitably be some disruption, but asked passengers for patience, saying the CAA was having to effectively create one of the UK’s largest airlines, adding: “It is a huge undertaking.”
Passengers from as far away as Tel Aviv will require repatriation, and one “rescue flight” from Ibiza has already landed at Gatwick, the CAA said. The vast majority of customers due to fly on Monday are expected return by the end of the day.
Transport Secretary Mr Grayling said: “This is a hugely distressing situation for British holidaymakers abroad – and my first priority is to help them get back to the UK.”
He said the airline had been a victim of a “price war in the Med”.
Mr Grayling said the Department for Work Pensions would give support to those affected and other airlines had already told him they may seek to employ Monarch staff.
Distress for customers
Mike Olley had been due to fly back to Birmingham from Malaga on Monday.
“We got a text this morning saying that Monarch had gone out of business,” he told the BBC.
“I thought it was a prank. Our flight is at 12:15 back home today. We haven’t got any information on our flight yet.”
Katie Ode drove to Manchester Airport from Anglesey, north Wales, for a flight on Monday morning, but received a text message about Monarch when she was 10 minutes away.
She told BBC Radio 5 Live the airport was “chaotic”, adding: “There was a massive queue of traffic.”
John Shepherd, from Tamworth, had been due to fly to Cyprus on Tuesday with his 92-year-old father.
He said they had already managed to book flights on another airline – costing a “fair bit of money”, but he added: “I’m worried we’ve lost all the money on the flights.
“We’ve now got to go through the rigmarole of contacting the credit card company and seeing if we can get it back.”
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