Monarch Airlines

[lbaspotter]

Now this is more interesting and could work out well for LBA.
As it looks like Norwegian Air have entered the race at the last minute to do a deal with Monarch.

http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news..._Air_eyes_Monarch_Airlines_deal__sources_say/

 

[Tarn Spotter]

Why buy a short haul rival and give them money to finance the sellers long haul ambitions which are your growth market, unless the deal to remove totally the Monarch operation and put paid to Monarchs long haul ambitions.
Getting Monarch to do a similar deal to Easyjet linking into Norwegian long haul routes makes sense.
Whilst it might have sounded like sour grapes Ryanair's comments last week about Norwegians financial state have a ring of truth.
The city believes that route expansion has meant the core business being neglected, causing costs to rise and yet overall payloads dropping.

 

[Finger66]

No smoke without fire then maybe? There are definitely some weird but interesting times ahead around mergers, takeovers and alliances. Winter months are always the toughest so we may start to see things move pretty quickly

 

[Jerry]

Why buy a short haul rival and give them money to finance the sellers long haul ambitions

Because you can get into a market you have failed to establish yourself in and that rival is an established brand there. Also you can make sure their long haul ambitions can complement yours, i'd imagine there would be no Monarch long haul at Gatwick or it would be on routes agreed between the 2 ie Monarch would focus more on the Caribbean and Norwegian would keep focusing on the USA.

 

[Aviador]

I'm told we will find out within the next week. Whether that involves other airlines we will just have to wait and see.

 

[Finger66]

That timing would make total sense with the ATOL renewal due at end of September - just less than a week away

 

[Tarn Spotter]

After months of chasing finally got from Monarch my ATOL certificate this week end, for our flight only departure early October.
Five Flights booked July 2016, received all ATOL certificates immediatley for flights upto 30th September 2017, but not the October 2017.
Thankfully this now received in case something happens in the next 10 days.

Because you can get into a market you have failed to establish yourself in and that rival is an established brand there. Also you can make sure their long haul ambitions can complement yours.

Surely Monarch and Norwegian share the same operating bases in the main for short haul, Gatwick, B'Ham and manchester, this only leaves Luton and Leeds where they dont compete at the moment.
Certainly all our friends and family who live in the London area, deserted Monarch the second Norwegian came on the scene as better prices and service, especially free Wi Fi, which younger memebrs of the family seem unable even on a flight to do without.
In respect of Birmingham, my son and family who live in the midlands deserted both, as Jet2 Holiday offer, unmatched by the other two.

 

[Jerry]

After months of chasing finally got from Monarch my ATOL certificate this week end, for our flight only departure early October.
Five Flights booked July 2016, received all ATOL certificates immediatley for flights upto 30th September 2017, but not the October 2017.
Thankfully this now received in case something happens in the next 10 days.

Surely Monarch and Norwegian share the same operating bases in the main for short haul, Gatwick, B'Ham and manchester, this only leaves Luton and Leeds where they dont compete at the moment.
Certainly all our friends and family who live in the London area, deserted Monarch the second Norwegian came on the scene as better prices and service, especially free Wi Fi, which younger memebrs of the family seem unable even on a flight to do without.
In respect of Birmingham, my son and family who live in the midlands deserted both, as Jet2 Holiday offer, unmatched by the other two.

At Gatwick they can cooperate move aircraft and slots and routes about between each other. Norwegian wants to concentrate more on long haul from Gatwick so may well pass some short haul routes over to Monarch to free up slots. If Monarch then launches a long haul operation from Gatwick they can also work together on that.
In the regions Norwegian hasn't been greatly successful so by buying Monarch or JV with them gets access to that market as well as any potential new ones Monarch is looking at and it means they can stop them launching MAX TATL from EDI and BFS if they were looking at that.

With the new MAXs thing's like free WiFi could be installed so essentially you get the Norwegian product but just have Monarch written on it.

 

[lbaspotter]

Guess Jet2 are no longer interested in London Luton based short Haul airline Monarch.
Sky News are now reporting that KPMG may have received upto 3 bids for the airline owned by Graybull from Easyjet, Wizz Air and Norwegian.

Source: http://news.sky.com/story/monarch-lands-easyjet-bid-for-troubled-short-haul-network-11056276

 

[Finger66]

To me the best fit in all of this would be Easyjet. Only problem there is the mix of Boeings and Airbus. I say its the best fit because U2 and DY have already announced their feeder tie up to get more through on to long haul so a U2 purchase of ZB would provide extra feed and strengthen their presence in the regions. Maybe we will get U2 back at LBA after all!

 

[Finger66]

To me the best fit in all of this would be Easyjet. Only problem there is the mix of Boeings and Airbus. I say its the best fit because U2 and DY have already announced their feeder tie up to get more through on to long haul so a U2 purchase of ZB would provide extra feed and strengthen their presence in the regions. Maybe we will get U2 back at LBA after all!

 

[Bigman]

I must admit that I hadn't even considered Easyjet as a possibility. It would give them an LBA base without the need to expend any start up costs, apart from rebranding and new advertising. The only question would be the new 737Max which do not fit with their Airbus fleet. The existing Monarch fleet does of course.

 

[lbaspotter]

More interesting is that fact it states that Easyjet could contine to operate the current short haul business as a stand alone company instead of integrating it using the new fleet of Boeing 737-MAX800's to feed Monarch's long haul ambitions .

So the aircraft may remain in Monach colours, its just that it the short haul operation will be owned by Easyjet Group instead of Graybull.

 

[lbaspotter]

Reported elsewhere we should here something about Monarch tomorrow.

Looks like the doing a deal Norwegian which will see Monarch brand been kept along with its short haul routes.
Long Haul routes been operated from Birmingham using a fleet of ex Air Berlin A330s and B737-MAX800's to JFK.

 

[lbaspotter]

Oh dear god I really hope this isn't true, We all know that ATOL renewal is due today but the Times is reporting that Monarch Airlines are on the brink of Collapse.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/monarch-airline-may-be-close-to-collapse-6csjng90z

 

[Aviador]

It's ridiculous headlines like that that bring airlines to their knees. It may well be true but it is pointless speculation on probably factless information. Having said that, you would have thought Greybull would know better by now after last year's similar fiasco.

 

[lbaspotter]

Even though I really don't want to see Monarch go down here's a further update from Sky News

http://news.sky.com/story/monarch-prays-for-lifeline-as-caa-considers-licence-extension-11060556

When you add it all up it really dose make me wonder if the CAA & GOV have known all along that this may well happen to Monarch?
This time last year the were actually flight planning a ghost fleet. So makes sense when you consider that the is 10 or is it 12+ Qatar Airlines Airbus A320's all parked up at London Stansted. Possibly ready on standby if anything was to happen after 23:59 tonight...

 

[Aviador]

When you add it all up it really dose make me wonder if the CAA & GOV have known all along that this may well happen to Monarch?
This time last year the were actually flight planning a ghost fleet. So makes sense when you consider that the is 10 or is it 12+ Qatar Airlines Airbus A320's all parked up at London Stansted. Possibly ready on standby if anything was to happen after 23:59 tonight...

Maybe but as I mentioned in the Monarch thread on the Birmingham forum, Greybull recently showed an interest in purchasing Alitalia. Surely this means Greybull are happy pursuing airline stocks? if Greybull felt their airline experiment hadn't worked, they wouldn't still be pursuing purchasing other airlines?

It's worth mentioning that the Daily Express is the newspaper that brings us annual headlines like "Snow chaos to cripple Britain", "Coldest winter in 100 years" among many other wacky headlines. We should treat their headlines with a pinch of salt until we get the facts.

 

[imagineif]

Part of me thinks, the Monarch group don't really want the package side of things given the extremely low 5% it contributes to the business overall - very low in comparison with TUI, Thomas Cook and Jet2. Like the short haul model - it's an element of the business it wants to 'offload'.

Unfortunately I do expect this 24 hour extension to be the last for Monarch, we could all be surprised with a last minute deal with Wizz or Easy but it's a stretch. That said, Wizz have just registered Wizz UK with companies house??

Monarch lost over £300 million last year - mostly down to very high leasing costs on it's fleet so that would be one of the biggest put offs for a potential buyer/partner/investor.

A second year of uncertainty over licences will be even more damaging this time round, pushing booking figures down for the future. I just can't see how they will climb out of this mess this time round and I think competitors will now be happy to stand back and watch it collapse then scrap over assets and slots. Boeing will easily re-allocate the order to a new customer for the MAX's.

I know the current fiasco relates to the tour operator/package license but if it does collapse it will just be a snowball effect and the airline doesn't have the strength to survive it.

Also worth mentioning that the accountancy firm has set up a shelf company just this week.

I hope I am wrong on all points, it's an iconic brand and my thoughts are with all those working at ZB going through hell for a second year.

 

[Finger66]

So a 24 hour stay of execution. What does this mean? Basically not much. I share imagineif's thoughts to the staff at ZB as it is not nice to experience redundancy and none of us want to see this iconic brand disappear. However I fear the situation may be beyond rectification this year and the vultures are circling ready to pick up the pieces. I too hope I/we are so wrong with our assumptions. Could be a very interesting Sunday ahead...............