Friday 4th January 2019 - Monarch Aircraft Engineering falls into administration

Birmingham based engineering arm of collapsed airline Monarch has gone bust with the loss of 408 jobs.

Monarch Aircraft Engineering Limited (MAEL) is "unsustainable in its present form", administrators KPMG said.

Attempts to restructure the firm - taken over in October by Greybull Capital - had failed, KPMG confirmed.

The union Unite accused Luton airport-based MAEL of failing to consult employees before the collapse and said it was taking legal action.

Airline Monarch, which was also owned by Greybull, collapsed in 2017, leading to more than 1,800 workers being made redundant and the flights and holidays of about 860,000 people being cancelled.

"Following the administration of other Monarch entities in 2017, MAEL sought to build its customer base to replace the loss of business from the former airline," David Pike, restructuring partner at KPMG, said.

Source: BBC News

Over 1.1 million passengers recorded at Birmingham Airport in June

Passenger figures for the month of June show that Birmingham Airport welcomed over 1.1 million people – giving the Midlands gateway its sixteenth consecutive month of record breaking growth.

In total 1,118,452 people were recorded travelling through the airport last month, up by 13.1% compared to the same month last year. This equates to over 129,000 more passengers travelling through the airport in June and brings the 2016 running total for passengers using the facility up to over 5.2 million so far.

Both long and short haul routes saw significant passenger growth rates with long haul up by 10.6% and short haul up by 13.2% year-on-year.

Paul Kehoe, Chief Executive Officer at Birmingham Airport, said: “June is the start of the busy summer season here at Birmingham Airport and it’s great that we have started this off with over a million passengers travelling through.

“Long haul routes are continuing to perform well but our short haul routes also saw very strong growth compared to last year showing that demand to fly from Birmingham Airport is increasing. Our growing list of airlines and destinations means more passengers are choosing to fly from the West Midlands as we offer choice, accessibility, flexibility and value.”

Scheduled traffic accounted for over 86% of the total passenger volume for June and saw a 26% growth rate compared to the same month last year. Charter traffic accounted for over 14% of the total.

Caribbean and Middle Eastern destinations saw the greatest rates of growth compared to the same month last year due to new direct destinations such as Doha and Punta Cana.

Scheduled destinations with significant year-on-year passenger growth were Malta (+93.8%), Palma de Mallorca (+90.2%) and Reykjavik (+87.6%).

Charter destinations with significant growth were Fuerteventura (+147%), Skiathos (+78.6%) and Genoa (+66%).

Wednesday 13th July 2016