400 Birmingham jobs lost after Monarch’s financial crash

Almost 400 staff employed in Birmingham by collapsed airline Monarch have been made redundant, administrators have confirmed.

KPMG said the 389 employees were among the 1,858 staff across the country to lose their jobs.

Of these, 1,760 were employees of Monarch Airlines, while 98 were employed by Monarch Travel Group.

Between them the companies employed approximately 2,100 people. The remainder have been retained by the joint administrators to assist them in the administration process and to help the Civil Aviation Authority with the repatriation of customers currently overseas.

Partner at KPMG and Joint Administrator Blair Nimmo said shortly before his appointment all Monarch employees had received an email from the company confirming that it was about to enter administration.

“Regrettably, with the business no longer able to fly, a significant number of redundancies were made,” he said.

“Over the coming days, my team will be doing all it can to assist the employees in submitting claims to the Redundancy Payments Office for monies owed.”

There was better news for around 300 other staff in Birmingham employed by Monarch’s serving arm, Monarch Aircraft Engineering Ltd (MAEL).

MAEL, which employs more than 700 – including around 300 in Birmingham, has become a standalone company and will be continuing operations as normal.

MAEL operates from six locations in the UK and four overseas. The company has hangars at Birmingham and London Luton airports, and line maintenance stations at London Gatwick, London Luton, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds Bradford, Edinburgh, Nice, Malaga, Warsaw and Kiev.

Whilst Monarch Airlines was a significant customer for MAEL, its focus is now on servicing its other existing clients and securing new contracts. In the last two weeks MAEL has won a new significant contract from Virgin Atlantic Airlines.

MAEL will carry out C1 checks for Virgin’s Boeing 787-9 fleet between 2017 and 2021. All the maintenance work will be carried out at its state of the art facility at Birmingham Airport, which opened in 2013.

At the 2017 Paris Air Show in June, MAEL announced a joint venture partnership with Boeing Global Services (formerly Boeing GoldCare). The two companies are collaborating on securing additional third-party fleet servicing agreements, capitalizing on Boeing’s strength and reach within the industry and the expertise of MAEL.

Commenting, Chris Dare, managing director at MAEL, said: “MAEL has always been a standalone business within the Monarch Group, holding its own cash, employees and property.

“Despite what has happened at Monarch Airlines and Monarch Tour Group, MAEL continues to trade as normal with renewed focus on servicing our existing clients and winning new contracts.

“We are extremely happy to have secured Virgin as a new customer for our Birmingham facility. This yet again proves our ability to secure new business with the very best customers in an extremely competitive market.

“Our expanding customer base at Birmingham is testament to our efficient, reliable and high quality base maintenance team. As a new customer we look forward to welcoming 17 of Virgin’s Boeing 787 aircraft into our Birmingham hangar over the next four years.”