Jason Moore06/10/2017 00:00
TW
1

The British government doesn't get much praise at the moment but it should be congtratulated for the operation launched this week to bring home more than 110,000 stranded Monarch tourists. It was dubbed by one British red-top as one of the biggest evacuations since Dunkirk and so far the operation appears to have run very smoothly. Staff from the British Consulates across Spain were dispatched to Spanish airports to help with the operation. In fact, a Boeing 747, the world´s biggest commercial jet, helped airlift stranded Monarch passengers at Palma airport with the help of staff from the British Consulate. Similar operations but with smaller aircraft were carried out at Minorca and Ibiza airports. It must be reassuring for British tourists that if their travel company does fail, there is a plan to bring them home with relative ease. I am told that some Monarch passengers were over the moon at the prospect of going back home on a Jumbo jet.

The failure of Monarch is a major blow to the British travel industry. The company was a household name which helped pioneer package holiday tourism to the Balearics. Also, it was Britain´s fifth biggest airline. The company always had a good reputation. It is fitting that its demise didn't mean that thousands of people were stranded across the globe with no flight home. The operation to bring stranded passengers home was as smooth as the reputation that Monarch built up over many years.