Monarch Airline Puts In £165M Investment For Greybull

By mdkg1116

Oct 13, 2016 06:00 AM EDT

Fresh financing permitted the airline to renew its membership of the Air Travel Organizers Licensing (ATOL) scheme. This scheme refunds customers if travel firms fall down. Definitely, it means the airline can invest in a new aircraft.

Monarch's majority shareholder, Greybull Capital is known for its investment in Scunthorpe's steelworks.

With an investment of £125m, it brought a majority stake in Monarch in 2014.

Andrew Swaffield, chief executive of the Monarch Group said that it is a testament to the extensive effort by all parties. Over the past weeks and months, they were happy to announce that in their 48-year history it has its largest investment, including the renewal of their ATOL licenses.

With the choice to buy 15 more, Monarch announced an order for 30 of the latest Boeing 737 jets in October 2014. In 2018 it expects to take delivery  of the first of those.

Monarch lives to fly another day, after three weeks of drama. Yet, an open question remained on how long the holiday airline retains its independence. There is no detail on what the £165m from owners Greybull Capital will take. It is enough to satisfy the Civil Aviation Authority, but will not remove doubts about its long-term prospects.

Western Mediterranean was the airlines' flight strength. Egypt and North Africa turned into its Achilles' heel as a terror attacks have dented to those destinations.

Monarch remains caught between the big low-cost airlines EasyJet and Ryanair, on top of those short-term trading challenges. The in-house airlines owned by the big tour operators including Tui and Thomas Cook.

To secure company's future requires to find a profitable niche that it can defend from both those types of voracious competitors. The alternative may be a merger with a rival.

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