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Monarch Airlines resurrectedMonarch is set to take to the skies again - six years after going bust: Airline prepares to stage comeback after collapsing into £466m debts and leaving 110k holidaymakers stranded abroad, sparking Britain's biggest ever peacetime repatriation
Monarch Airlines is set to stage a comeback six year after collapsing into £466million debts and leaving 110,000 holidaymakers stranded abroad.
The company claimed it will resurface as a 'premium alternative to low-cost leisure carriers' and fill a hole in capacity following the Covid pandemic.
The airline has been reinstated at Companies House, with its head office in Luton, according to The Times.
Reports over the weekend said the airline had been 'passed into new ownership, with social media posts including the tagline 'Let's Monarch'.
When the company collapsed in October 2017 it was Britain's fifth largest airline, after expanding to sell scheduled flights as well as package offers.
Daniel Ellingham, 64, is now chairman of the revitalised company.
In an interview with American trade publication Airways, he said: 'I am honoured to be able to lead the iconic Monarch brand into a new era, now 55 years after it first took to the skies.
'It is immensely rewarding to know that we are soon going to launch a new and strong company for the UK tourism sector.'
Mr Ellingham explained that the company has received initial investments from firms in Britain and the EU.
The airline is currently talking with another British airline to acquire 15 A320 short-haul aircraft.
In 2017 the Luton-based airline imploded, leaving thousands of customers high and dry and prompting the UK's biggest peacetime repatriation.
At the time, it was reported only around 43,000 people - five per cent of all victims - would definitely get their cash back under the government-backed Atol scheme that protects package holidays.
Everyone else was told they would have to claim the money spent on flights back through credit card firms and banks.
There was also growing anger over how Monarch handled its collapse amid claims its customers and staff were left in the dark and told they were 'operating as normal' before hearing the bad news via text or email.
At the time, the CAA revealed that the airline had alerted it more than a month earlier that it was in difficulty.
The former Monarch boss told MailOnline that he wished to apologise to Monarch customers and staff.
'The most important thing for me to add is to say how sorry I am that the company has had to enter administration and that so many customers have been inconvenienced and that so many jobs have been lost,' he said.
'Today's been a heartbreaking day.'
He added that the decline of the airline was triggered by terror attacks in Monarch's destinations, but the coup de grace was 'the Brexit referendum and the fact that it put our costs up by £40million because the pound collapsed.'
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