Nearly 2,000 people have so far lost their jobs and some 750,000 people who had flights booked with Monarch won't be taking them after the UK's 5th largest airline collapsed yesterday.
How many of the 750,000 tickets were for ski flights remains unknown, but Monarch had been trying to grow its ski flight business in recent years and operated services used by skiers to Geneva, Grenoble, Barcelona and Finnish Lapland amongst others from airports across England.
Skiers who were booked on Monarch flights by tour operators as part of package deals seem to be the best protected from the airline's demise. Tour operators are legally obliged to deliver the holiday booked or in the worst case offer a suitable alternative.
Crystal, the UK biggest ski holiday operator, said it had a limited number of its clients booked using monarch's services but following the airline's announcement at 4am yesterday, Crystal reported by 3pm it had successfully transferred all affected passengers on to alternate flights on the same days to the same destinations so no one had to change their holiday plans.
"All Crystal Ski Holidays customers who have Monarch flights as part of their holiday package will be switched onto our Thomson Airways flights. These will operate from the same airports and on the same dates, though there may be some difference in departure and arrival times. We will confirm the exact details with all affected customers this week," said a Crystal spokesperson
Another of the big ski holiday operators, Inghams, confirmed this morning that it also managed to switch all its passengers on the day of the Monarch announcement,
"During the course of yesterday, 2nd October, Inghams was able to replace all flights for the ski season which had previously been arranged with Monarch. In due course these details will be communicated to guests and travel agents. We will keep our web pages updated with latest information and of course, be in direct contact with guests as soon as we can," said a company spokesperson.
Other tour operators are known to have some of their customers booked on Monarch services. They've said they're working to get all passengers sorted with alternative carriers and stressed that all passenger bookings are safe whilst requesting patience.
For skiers who have booked their flights direct with Monarch it's a more mixed picture although one of the administrators appointed by KPMG to handle the airline's collapse has said he expects "most if not all" passengers to get their money back.
However there appear to be "grey areas" where passengers may or may not get refunds depending on the attitude of their bank or insurance company.
Passengers booking with credits cards are entitled to a refund automatically but only if the flight cost was over £99 per flight. So two tickets costing £95 each way for two people, total £380 doesn't automatically qualify for a credit card refund. As most flights were booked months before they were due to be taken next winter it's likely many and probably most cost less than £99.
Debit card payments do not have the same protection as credit cards but it is recommended that skiers who booked with their debit card contact their bank anyway to ask if they can get refunds. Apparently some do refund debit card payments.
Apparently most travel insurances helpfully do not cover your airline going bankrupt. An organisation called Travel Insurance Explained is advising Monarch customers to check their travel insurance policies to see whether they have: a 'scheduled airline failure' clause which would provide cover for the costs of the flight if they have not travelled and/or 'end supplier failure' which would provide cover for the costs of the flight if they have not travelled and also things like hotels and car hire, which have been paid for and can no longer be used. But they say most policies don't.
In the current economic climate the company urge passengers to pay "a few pounds extra" to ensure this cover is included in their policy.
"Once you have exhausted all of the avenues detailed above, you can approach your travel insurer, but do not expect to be able to claim under the conventional cancellation, curtailment or travel delay sections of the policy. Most travel policies do not provide cover under these sections for the failure of an airline, tour operator or travel agent. The section you are looking for will be called either Scheduled Airline Failure, or End Supplier Failure," said Stephen Howard, director of Postcard Travel Insurance which does include this cover.
Blair Nimmo, Jim Tucker and Mike Pink from KPMG, who were appointed the joint administrators of Monarch Airlines Limited and Monarch Travel Group yesterday have said that 1,858 employees have been made redundant.
"Regrettably, with the business no longer able to fly, a significant number of redundancies were made. 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," said Mr Nimmo.