• Monarch Airlines

After their departure from British Eagle two of its former directors, Bill Hodgson and Don Peacock, set about creating their own airline and the result was Monarch Airlines, which came into being at the beginning of June 1967. From the outset the plan was to obtain a foothold in the growing inclusive tour market and to this end a substantial block-booking agreement was concluded with the well-known travel firm, Cosmos Tours. The founders soon realised that the available working capital would only sustain the new venture for around a year of operations and secured an agreement from Cosmos to provide 80% of the finance required to support the airline during its formative period.

A base was subsequently set up at Luton airport where work was begun to combine two connecting hangars into a single unit capable of housing Monarch’s two ex-Caledonian Bristol Britannias, together with the in-house maintenance subsidiary, Airline Engineering Ltd. Aided by a £60,000 grant from the local council, anxious to develop the airport’s potential, by the early spring of 1968 all was ready. Monarch’s first revenue service for Cosmos was undertaken by G-AOVI on 5 April 1968 between Luton and Madrid and thereafter, for the remainder of the season, the two aircraft were kept busy with inclusive tour flights to France, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. Beyond this bread-and-butter work, occasional ad hoc charters were flown across the North Atlantic and to West Germany and Aden carrying service personnel on behalf of the Ministry of Defence, together with sub-service movements for British Caledonian and Channel Airways.

When British Eagle folded, in October 1968, Monarch was quick to scoop up five of their Britannias, together with the lucrative contract from the Ministry of Technology to transport equipment and personnel to the Woomera rocket test range in Australia. In the first eight months of operation 122,873 passengers were carried during the course of 100,527,915 passenger-miles flown. For the 1970 summer season, eight Britannias were in service and found additional employment flying day-trippers to Paris or Rotterdam for the Dutch bulb fields on behalf of Clarksons as well as Cosmos’ extended tour programme, now taking in additional holiday destinations in North Africa, Portugal and Yugoslavia. During 1971 Monarch began casting around for jet equipment to replace the Britannia fleet and eventually settled on three Boeing 720Bs from Northwest Airlines, one of which, G-AZFB, flew the airline’s first commercial jet service on 13 December 1971, between Luton and Tunis. Services were also occasionally operated for the likes of BOAC and Iraqi Airways and towards the end of the decade several Boeing 707s also passed through Monarch’s hands for wet-lease to Air Malta and Cyprus Airways, enabling them to open up their own jet services.

Most of Monarch’s services were being flown with jet equipment by the end of 1972, leaving just four Britannias to take care of ad hoc charters and ongoing trooping and military freight commitments for government agencies. The collapse of major tour operator Clarksons and its subsidiary airline, Court Line, in August 1974, prompted Cosmos to offer holiday packages out of Bristol, but to fulfil this jet aircraft smaller than the Boeings would be required. Consequently, the BAC 1-11-500 was chosen, which began operating from Bristol on 17 May 1975 and later in the summer also flew out of Birmingham and East Midlands. At the end of January 1976 Monarch bade farewell to the last of its trusty Britannias, but involvement with the type was far from over. Airline Engineering’s acknowledged expertise had already garnered maintenance work from the likes of African Safari, Cubana and IAS Cargo and with the retirement of the RAF’s fleet of Britannias in the autumn of 1975, they became responsible for conversion of many of these aircraft to civilian standards for sale to such operators as Aer Turas and Gemini of Ghana.

By the early 1980s, now a well-established carrier with 1,000 employees and carrying around a million passengers annually, Monarch began looking towards the next generation of jet airliners by placing an order for Boeing 737s and 757s. The Monarch Air Travel brand was launched in 1983 to provide seat-only services and in 1986 crown service was introduced, offering passengers an enhanced flight package on many services. Scheduled services were also commenced in 1986, from 5 July on routes from Luton to Mahon (Menorca), Malaga, Malta and Tenerife, with further approval for Alicante, Las Palmas and Palma. On 1 May 1988 Monarch entered the long-haul market with an inaugural flight to Orlando, Florida, by Boeing 757-200ER, making it the first British company to be certified for extended range operations. A spin-off from this capability was a later arrangement with Alitalia to operate their transatlantic Boeing 767-300ER flights under Monarch’s air operator certificate, pending the Italian carrier’s ETOPS certification. During 1990 Monarch began serving additional long-haul destinations in the Bahamas, Brazil, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico and Thailand and continuing expansion of this market came in 1990 with arrival of two Airbus A300-600Rs in March and services to New York on 22 May and Boston on 11 June. With Airbus A320s having superseded the Boeing 737s, fleet upgrading continued in 1997 with Monarch becoming UK launch customer for the A330 with an order for two aircraft, following an earlier reservation for two A321s. Apart from in-house inclusive tour commitments, Monarch held contracts with over 100 other tour operators and had further extended its long-range operations to the Caribbean, Venezuela and Sri Lanka.

In contrast to many charter airlines that responded negatively to competition from low-cost carriers in recent decades, Monarch actually increased its capacity and following initial success at Manchester expanded its scheduled operations from Luton and London-Gatwick, offering enhanced budget flights to 13 Mediterranean destinations from four key UK airports. This business, rebranded in 2002 as Monarch Scheduled, accounted for some 60% of the airline’s total business. After launching long-haul services in 1988, Monarch later extended the scope of such operations to take in Mexico, the Caribbean, the Gambia, Kenya, India and the Maldives.

In addition to the airline and its engineering division, parent company Monarch Holdings plc, the UK arm of the Mantegazza family’s Globus Travel Group (founded in 1928 as Globus Viaggi to offer local coach excursions in Switzerland), incorporated tour operators Cosmos (launched in 1961), Distant Dreams, Archers Direct, Pullman Holidays, seat-only specialist, Avro and Monarch Technical Support. Monarch also diversified into tailor-made flight packages and wet/dry leasing and contract engineering services. By 2005 Monarch was flying 5.3 million passengers, split almost equally between charter and scheduled services. In August 2006 the airline ordered 6 Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners for delivery in 2010, but a combination of delays to the Dreamliner project resulted in deliveries being put back to 2013 and then, when Monarch’s fortunes rapidly reversed in 2009, the order was cancelled.

Having been a consistently profitable company, in 2009 group trading losses amounted to £32.3m, which required the Mantegazza family to inject £45m into the business. A business review resulted in a move away from the charter market to scheduled services to holiday destinations. A small profit was made in 2010, but further losses of £45m were incurred in 2010-11. A decision was taken to expand the scheduled services and a further cash injection of £75m was made in November 2011. New bases were opened at East Midlands in autumn 2012 (to take advantage of the demise of BMIbaby) and Leeds/Bradford in March 2013.

By the year ending October 2013 Monarch returned to profit and achieved a 9.5% increase in passenger numbers. In 2014 Monarch announced confirmation of an order for 30 new Boeing 737MAX and also the closure of its East Midlands base. In October 2014 Monarch Holdings was acquired by Greybull Capital which led to a downsize in operations to focus on short-haul leisure routes. In 2016 Monarch experienced further financial difficulties resulting in an injection of investment, most of which came from Boeing. On 2 October 2017 Monarch Airlines ceased operations and entered administration, leaving 110,000 passengers overseas requiring repatriation. In April 2021 Monarch Airlines was dissolved.