Monarch Airlines

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Monday 9th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

We will certainly give some thought to that. It is very noticeable that other airlines have been able to carry on flying in administration. The risk, of course, is that an aircraft could easily be impounded by an international airline. One of the reasons we sought to hire our own fleet was to remove that risk. If we had used the Monarch planes, there was a danger that, if they arrived at an airport and a local creditor decided to take action, the plane might have been unable to return. That is something we always need to weigh in the balance. We need to look at what happened with Air Berlin and Alitalia and see whether there are lessons to be learned, but first and foremost our task should always be to protect passengers whose journeys might otherwise be at risk.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

Price wars, stiff competition and a change in travel habits all contributed to Monarch’s failure. My constituents in Wealden have been in touch about their holidays and business trips being ruined. Can the Secretary of State confirm that he and his ministerial colleagues have visited returning passengers at UK airports and say what feedback he has received?

[Chris Grayling]

I met the first flight back at Manchester airport last Monday and my noble Friend Lord Callanan visited Leeds Bradford airport on the same day to meet people coming back. I have had a lot of letters from people who were able to travel back on the repatriation flights saying how grateful they were and how smooth it had been. There are bound to be some hiccups on the way—we had weather problems in Funchal, which led to some cancellations—but in overall terms this has been a very smooth effort and a great tribute to a team of people in the CAA who are not airline specialists, but who have come together to run an airline in a way that was, frankly, enormously impressive.