Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the cost was of repatriating non-ATOL passengers related to the collapse of Monarch Airlines.

The Civil Aviation Authority 17/18 annual report sets out that the total cost of the Monarch Airlines repatriation activities amounted to £52.5 million.

Of this, £9.5m was paid by the Air Travel Trust Fund which covered the costs of repatriating Monarch Group ATOL protected passengers. The total cost of all other passengers was assessed as £43.0m.

Since Monarch’s collapse, government has sought to recover the costs of the operation from several third parties including the finance and tourism sectors.

I refer to the Written Ministerial Statement made by the Secretary of State on 9 May 2019, which reported that the final cost to the taxpayer from the Monarch repatriation had been assessed to be £40.5m.

This previously stated estimate included an expected contribution from Thomas Cook which, following their collapse, the government no longer expects to receive.

The latest estimate of the cost to the taxpayer of repatriating non-ATOL passengers is £40.7m. A final position on cost recoveries cannot be known until the completion of the Monarch administration.