Bankruptcy of Britain’s Monarch Airlines Strands Thousands Abroad
LONDON — Monarch Airlines, a struggling British low-cost carrier
and tour operator, collapsed into bankruptcy early Monday, ceasing its flights and forcing the government to step in and bring home more than 100,000 passengers stranded abroad.
For Monarch, “mounting cost pressures and increasingly competitive market conditions in the European short-haul market” led to “a sustained period
of trading losses,” Blair Nimmo, a partner at the accounting firm KPMG, which is acting as administrator for company, said in a news release.
Ryanair, an Irish discount airline, has expressed interest in making a bid for Alitalia’s assets,
but it has faced its own public backlash after it was forced to cancel more than 1,000 flights in September and October because of mistakes in its handling of vacation time for pilots.
