Monarch Airlines — House of Lords, 2017-10-09
Topic: Transportation
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, with the leave of the House I shall repeat a Statement made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport in another place. The Statement is as follows: "I would like to make a Statement about the steps that the Government have been taking to support those affected by the collapse of Monarch Airlines, in particular the 110,000 passengers that it left abroad without a flight back to the UK and the almost 2,000 people who have lost their jobs Mr Speaker, this situation is deeply regrettable, and all parties considered options to avoid the collapse of the company. Ultimately, however, Monarch’s board took the decision to place it into administration and it ceased trading at around 4 am on Monday 2 October. The engineering arm of the group remains a viable business and continues to trade Ahead of the collapse, my department had been working closely with the Civil Aviation Authority and several departments across Whitehall to prepare contingency plans, and the response has been swift and substantial. To put this into context, this is the largest operation of its kind ever undertaken, and has meant that the CAA has essentially set up one of the UK’s largest airlines to conduct this operation. To give Members a sense of the scale, we have put arrangements in place to bring back 110,000 people to the UK, which requires 700 flights over a two-week period and a maximum of 35 aircraft in operation at one time. The CAA is working with 27 different airlines, and more than 200 CAA staff are working on the project, with thousands more in partner organisations. There are over 40 airports involved, in the UK, around the Mediterranean and beyond. It has required 267 coaches, carrying over 13,000 passengers. So far there have been over 39,000 calls to our customer service centre, all swiftly answered by more than 250 call-centre staff. There have been over 1 million unique visitors to a dedicated website—monarch.caa.co.uk—and 7 million page views. Furthermore, more than 1 million people have been reached through our Facebook promotion. There have been 10 government departments and agencies involved, including the FCO in London and our extensive diplomatic and consular network in those affected countries I have seen at first hand the work being done across government and by the CAA to make this operation a success, and spoken to some of the passengers who have returned to the UK on government flights. I have been hugely impressed by what I have seen and we have had a very strong response from passengers, with many praising the CAA and the Government themselves for a well-organised and professional response Normally, the CAA’s responsibility for bringing passengers back would extend only to those customers whose trips were covered by ATOL. However, this is the largest airline failure in UK history and there would have been insufficient capacity in the commercial aviation market to enable passengers to get home on other airlines. The danger was that we would have seen tens of thousands of passengers abroad with no easy means of returning to the UK. I therefore instructed the CAA to ensure that all those currently abroad were offered an alternative flight home. As of last night, around 80,000 passengers have returned to the UK, almost three-quarters of the total number who were abroad at the time of the collapse. We have also deployed teams of government officials to overseas airports to provide advice and assistance to passengers. Despite robust plans and their success so far, this is a hugely distressing situation for all concerned. Obviously, one of my top priorities has been to help those passengers abroad get safely back to the UK and our hearts also go out to those passengers who had lost advance bookings as a result of the collapse In addition to supporting passengers, we have been working across government to ensure that the almost 2,000 former Monarch employees receive the support they need. I am pleased to report that airlines have already been directly appealing to Monarch’s former employees. For instance, Virgin Atlantic is offering a fast-track recruitment process for cabin crew and pilots, and easyJet has invited applications for 500 cabin crew vacancies. EasyJet is also calling for direct-entry captains or first officers who meet captain qualifications. All former Monarch employees will have received information from Jobcentre Plus outlining the support available to them. In total, Jobcentre Plus has pulled together a list of more than 6,300 vacancies across the major UK-based airlines—more than three times the number of people made redundant—which will help former Monarch employees remain in the airline industry The Aviation Minister has been in contact with those Members whose constituencies will have been hardest hit by these job losses, and given assurances that we will work with the industry to offer what support we can. However, I am also aware of the duty the Government have to the taxpayer, and while affected passengers have been told they will not have to pay to be flown back to the UK, we have entered into discussions with several third parties with a view to recovering some of the costs of this operation The ATOL scheme will, of course, provide the financial cover for those who have ATOL protection. We are currently engaged in constructive discussions with the relevant credit and debit card providers in order that we might recoup from them some of the costs to taxpayers of these repatriation flights. We are also having similar discussions with other travel providers through which passengers may have booked a Monarch holiday, and I would like to thank all those involved for their constructive and realistic approach. The initial response to this unprecedented situation would not have been as successful were it not for the support and co-operation of many players The loss of a major British brand, which was close to celebrating its half-century, is undoubtedly a sad moment. However, this should not be seen as a reflection of the general health of the UK aviation sector, which continues to thrive. We have never had the collapse of an airline or holiday company on this scale before. We have responded swiftly and decisively. Right now our efforts are rightly focused on getting employees into new jobs, and passengers home. But then our efforts will turn to working through any reforms necessary to ensure that passengers do not find themselves in this position again. We need to look at all the options, not just ATOL, but also whether it is possible for airlines to be able to wind down in an orderly manner and look after their customers themselves without the need for the Government to step in. We will be putting a lot of effort into this in the weeks and months ahead This has been an unprecedented response to an unprecedented situation, and I am grateful to all parties who have stepped in to support those affected".