The numbers behind the Monarch fall

After news of the UK’s longest running airline, Monarch, going into administration broke last week, Financial Director takes a look at the numbers behind the fall.

2,100 staff were employed by The Airline and Tour Group collectively.

1,858 employees were made redundant.

1,760 of those made redundant were employees of Monarch Airlines.

98 of the employees made redundant were employed by Monarch Travel Group.

Ten companies within the Monarch Group are in administration: Monarch Holdings, Monarch Airlines, Monarch Travel Group, First Aviation, Avro Aviation, Avro, MH Aviation Transport (formerly Cosmos Aviation), Monarch Holidays (formerly Cosmos Holidays), somewhere2stay, Monarch 2011. Monarch Aircraft Engineering and Monarch Aircraft Engineering LLC (Monarch Ukraine) are not in administration and continue to trade as normal.

110,000 customers were overseas and due to travel back to the UK within 14 days, at the time Monarch collapsed.

Over 30 aircraft were chartered to bring Monarch customers back to the UK.

40 destinations made up the airline’s routes.

Monarch had five UK bases: London Gatwick, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds-Bradford and Luton, where Monarch is headquartered.

Six million sector seats were offered by Monarch Airlines to leisure destinations.

Monarch had tour operator passenger volumes of over 200,000 per year.

750,000 future bookings have been cancelled.

£165 million was injected into the company at the end of 2016 by its majority shareholder, Greybull Capital.

Monarch was Britain’s fifth largest airline.

This is the third European Airline to go bust this year, after Alitalia and Air Berlin filed for insolvency in summer.

The Mantegazza family, which owned Monarch before it was sold to Greybull Capital, poured £40 million into a rescue plan in 2011, then another £20 million in the same year, £15 million in 2013 and £25 million in 2014.

Greybull Capital bought the struggling airline for £75 million for a 90% stake, in 2014.

The remaining 10% stake went to the Pension Protection Fund.

Monarch has a £660 million deficit in the company’s defined-benefit pensions scheme on a buyout basis and £200 million on a PPF basis.

The group’s previous shareholders made a one-off £30 million contribution towards the pension deficit as part of the sale to Greybull Capital.

Some pilots lost up to 60% of their accrued pension entitlements.

Monarch cut 700 jobs when it was bought by Greybull Capital, slashed its aircraft from 42 to 34 and said it had saved £200 million in annual costs in 2015.

Monarch reported a loss of £169 million for the 12 months to the end of October 2014, exacerbated by one-off costs of £125 million.

Monarch’s financial statement for the year ending October 2016, shows the company made a pre-tax profit of £12.9 million, compared to £39.3 million the previous year. Total revenue stood at £558 million, compared with £655 million in 2015.

The pound fell 16% against the U.S. dollar and 9% against the euro in the 12 months since the June Brexit vote, a factor which contributed to Monarch’s demise.

£250 million in both equity and debt is what the majority owner, Greybull Capital, stands to lose in the wake of Monarch folding.

Greybull was one of the investors involved in the rescue of Comet in 2012, which later collapsed, leading to almost 7,000 job losses.

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