Following Greybull Capital’s announcement that it would use some of the profit made from sales of Monarch’s assets to pay back the £60 million repatriation bill left to taxpayers, the British Airline Pilots’ Association (BALPA) has asked the firm to consider paying staff money they are owed first.
Around 2,000 people were left jobless following the airline’s sudden collapse, and BALPA claims many of them were owed backpay. The union’s general secretary Brian Strutton has written a letter to Monarch owner Greybull Capital saying it has “an even greater responsibility [than paying back the repatriation bill] to the employees that your actions have left jobless and suffering huge financial loss of backpay and other monies owed, let alone the loss of their entire livelihood.”
Strutton has also written to transport secretary Chris Grayling asking if the CAA’s repatriation scheme was truly necessary, questioning whether Monarch could have continued operating long enough to bring the 110,000 customers abroad back home before closing down in an "orderly fashion".
Strutton commented: “Employees could have carried on working, brought all the passengers home and had all outstanding monies paid to them. If there is any sense of conscience it should surely be to pay what is owed to employees.”
Monarch administrator KPMG is currently seeking clarification in court over whether it has the right to sell the airline’s slots at airports, which it claims could be worth £60 million.