Monarch Airlines receives £165mn cash boost to keep flying

London / AFP

British airline Monarch on Wednesday won a cash injection from its owner, allowing the carrier to continue flying holidaymakers amid Brexit-fuelled industry turbulence.
Investment firm Greybull Capital has pumped another £165 million ($203 million, 184 million euros) into Monarch, enabling the airline to retain its licence to carry on selling package holidays, it said in a statement.
Greybull is Monarch’s majority shareholder and recently bought European assets from India’s Tata Steel.
The carrier last month defended itself against reports questioning its financial health, despite pointing to difficulties for the airline and holidays industry.
The sector has been blighted by unrest in key markets Egypt and Turkey, as well as the slumping pound caused by Britain’s EU exit vote on June 23.
“It is testament to the extensive effort by all parties, over the past weeks and months, that we are able to announce the largest investment in our 48-year history, as well as the renewal of our ATOL licences,” Monarch chief executive Andrew Swaffield said in a statement Wednesday.
Extension of the group’s Air Travel Organiser’s Licence (ATOL) membership — a scheme which is funded by the sector and compensates travellers in the case of a company collapse — was on condition of Monarch securing fresh funding.
The Civil Aviation Authority, the country’s independent airlines regulator which operates the scheme, added it had renewed Monarch’s ATOL licences until the end of September 2017.