BBC Radio 5 live

Image source, Getty Images

Martin Lewis of Moneysavingexpert.com, external explains what you need to do to get your money back if you had a Monarch booking.

If you paid with a credit card for a transaction worth between £100 and £30,000, he says you need to make a section 75, external claim under the Consumer Credit Act with your bank or card provider. The card company is jointly liable along with the merchant and although the process may not be speedy, "you should get your money back", Mr Lewis says.

If you paid with a debit card, the less well known "chargeback, external" protection applies. He advises consumers to ask for their money back because they will not get the flight they have paid for - and the process should be "reasonably speedy".

Those who paid with PayPal should also get refunds as the platform refunded customers of Lowcostholidays when it failed last summer.

Image source, PA

One reader of the live page knows several staff at Monarch. According to his email, the feeling among them is that Monarch's owner, Greybull, is to blame for the collapse:

"My partner and many of her colleagues, some of who have been at Monarch (formerly Cosmos) tour operator for decades in the Bromley office have all lost their jobs.

"Families with mortgages and bills to be paid will are all incredibly worried and angry a buyer couldn't be found for a company that has traded for 50 years.

"It's a very sad day and the general consensus is that Grey Bull are very much to blame, regardless of market conditions.

"A company with over 750,000 passengers who have paid in advance shouldn't have gone into administration at the last minute."

Image source, SBNA

Monarch's collapse into administration is "devastating news for pilots", says Balpa, the pilots' union.

Brian Strutton, its general secretary, says: "The thoughts of all UK airline pilots are with our friends and colleagues in Monarch today. This is an extremely difficult situation for everyone involved, but especially for Monarch staff members who, in the case of many pilots, have spent their whole careers working for Monarch and are now to be made redundant.

"We were hoping that the clear difficulties Monarch were in could have been resolved and the airline could continue trade. Sadly, that is not going to be the case. However, we will be working with our partner airlines across the UK and with our Monarch members to try and help them secure new jobs as quickly as possible. The skill, experience and professionalism of Monarch pilots cannot and must not be allowed to ebb from our aviation industry."

BBC Radio 5 live

Radio 5's Your Call is focusing on the Monarch failure this morning.

It hears from a leader of a group of 26 truck drivers going on a trip to Benidorm in March.

He booked for all of them direct with Monarch with his debit card, so is understandably stressed by the situation.

Victoria Bacon from ABTA (the association of travel agents), says he needs to contact his debit card provider. She says there are forms on the ABTA website.

Dominic O'Connell
Business Presenter, BBC Radio 4 Today programme

Image source, elettra.co.uk

Monarch’s demise is the dying roar from what were once the titans of the British travel industry – independent charter airlines. For four decades from the 1950s they ruled the roost, growing fat on burgeoning demand for cheap holidays in the Mediterranean.

But they have been comprehensively “Ubered” by a combination of the internet, which lets people create their own holidays rather relying on a travel operator, and the rise of easyJet and Ryanair, which have hoovered up much of their traffic.

It is also a story of two families. Monarch was started by the Mantegazzas, a Swiss-italian travel industry that owns the Globus Group. It needed an airline to carry its British passengers to the Mediterranean, so set up Monarch in 1968.

It grew quickly, and like most charter airlines was unperturbed when easyJet set up at its Luton base in 1995. Why would the likes of Monarch be worried by a new upstart airline? It and its competitors were already low-cost airlines, not the newbies.

They were wrong, and easyJet was right. The internet broke the hold of the traditional travel industry, and the new low-cost airline really did have lower costs. The Mantegazzas poured in hundreds of millions of pounds on various relaunches and new strategies, to no avail, selling to Greybull Capital – another family investment office – three years ago.

Image source, PA

The failure of Monarch has caused anxiety for workers and customers, but for the rest of the industry, it's an opportunity.

Neil Wilson, market analyst at ETX Capital, says shares in Ryanair and easyJet both rose about 3% in early trading.

"No doubt this takes the heat off Ryanair but it has wider implications. The third airline failure this year in Europe, after Alitalia and Air Berlin, is a symptom of over-capacity and overly-aggressive pricing," he says.

"There are now only really five big carriers operating in Europe: Ryanair, Lufthansa Group, International Airlines Group, Air France-KLM, and easyJet. Many more mid-sized carriers are limping on thanks to cheap oil but further consolidation may be necessary. Ryanair is among the last standing – its reputation can take a few more knocks.”

BBC Radio 5 live

David Elrick tells 5 live his flight to Dalaman from Gatwick was cancelled this morning.

“I arrived at 5am. The flight was due 07:10 and we were met by some of the staff at Gatwick airport handing out letters saying that Monarch had stopped trading.

“It wasn’t until we got to Gatwick that we were advised… you can imagine quite a few people were quite shocked by this.”

Mr Elrick says he managed to book another flight - but at a cost of £600 for him and his partner.

“Plus baggage and seats, I imagine I am £800 to £900 out of pocket. I booked through Thomson and they are Atol protected so hopefully there will be some form of compensation, but I’ll worry about that when back from holiday.”

BBC Radio 5 live

5 live presenter Sean Farrington tweets:

They're keeping calm and carrying on in Cyprus too...

Not everyone has been disrupted by the Monarch collapse it seems.

Amy and John and their three-year-old son Dylan were due to return from Turkey on a Monarch flight to Gatwick this afternoon but email to say:

Travel expert Simon Calder tells the BBC that if you have an Atol certificate "you are in a relatively strong position" when it comes to getting a refund.

(You would have got one when booking your holiday.)

"If you've got a proper package holiday... then it's relatively straight forward. You will simply apply for your money back."

"People who have booked flight-only deals, or indeed set up their own independent trips. It slightly depends on what card you have used to pay for it. If it was a credit card... and assuming it's over £100 then you simply go to your credit card issuer and say I want my money back."

"If you booked with a debt card it is not quite so straightforward. The first thing you have to do ... is go to the administrators, KPMG, and say please can I have my money back.

"If they say no, then you go to your card issuer and they should give the money back, but it's not going to be a swift process."

Image source, PA

The collapse of Monarch will raise questions about Greybull Capital, external, which held a 90% stake in the now-failed company.

It took control after putting in £125m into Monarch in 2014 and organised a further £165m injection just a year ago.

However, the 2016 bailout was the fourth for Monarch in the space of just five years, suggesting that it has faced headwinds for quite some time.

Greybull also bought the My Local chain from Morrisons in 2015 but its 125 stores closed in June last year with the loss of 1,000 jobs.

The investment firm owns the former Tata steelworks at Scunthorpe following a deal in April 2016.

Greybull Capital, the investment firm that owned Monarch, says it is "deeply saddened" by the group's collapse into administration.

"Greybull is providing support and working closely with the Civil Aviation Authority, as well as the Administrators at KPMG to mitigate the impact of this Administration as much as possible on customers, employees and all those involved with the Monarch Group," its statement says, external.

A Greybull spokesman said: “We are very sorry that we have not been able to turn around the Monarch Group, and for all the inconvenience and distress that this Administration will cause customers, employees and the many people who are associated with Monarch. We would like to thank all the employees, partners and stakeholders who have worked so hard the past three years to try and make the Monarch Group a success.”

If you have paid for a Monarch flight by card, and you probably did, then there's some really useful information from Paul Lewis at this link, external.

Paul Lewis presents the BBC's MoneyBox and is an expert on consumer rights.

The administrator of Monarch airlines says the "vast majority" of customers should get their money back.

Blair Nimmo from KPMG said the process is a "bit complicated" and customers should consult the CAA website at https://monarch.caa.co.uk, external

So what was the last Monarch flight to land? Flightradar has the answer:

BBC Breakfast

Why was the failure of Monarch Airlines announced a 04:00 on Monday morning?

Well the administrators are not allowed to be responsible for planes in the air as they do not have an air operating licence.

So 04:00 was the only time when there were no Monarch aircraft in the air, explains KPMG administrator Blair Nimmo.

That's also why employees only found out at the last minute.

ITV News consumer editor Chris Choi tweets:

Image source, Reuters

Many Monarch customers will be wondering if they will get their money back after booking a flight with the failed airline.

Blair Nimmo, the KPMG administrator for Monarch, says there are "complicated" rules concerning whether you paid for a flight with a credit or debit card.

However, he adds: "We would very much hope that the vast majority, if not everyone, would get their money back."

Anthony Clapham emails from El Rompido golf resort in Portugal: