Can the Monarch brand take off again?

Last Saturday, a post appeared on X (which we’re obliged to refer to as ‘the platform formally known as Twitter’) teasing the return of Monarch Airlines. For those at the back, Monarch was a charter airline which in the year prior to its collapse in 2017, carried nearly six and a half million holidaymakers to short and mid-haul destinations across the Med, Southern Europe and North Africa, focused on delivering package holidays. When it failed - a victim of falling revenues, an unsuccessful  pivot to more flight only sales (competing head on with the likes of  Ryanair and EasyJet), rising fuel costs and the effects of acts of terrorism in some of its core destinations - over 110,000 people had to be flown home in the UK’s biggest ever peacetime repatriation effort, and more than 850,000 customers were left seeking refunds. 

The history of air travel is haunted by the ghosts of failed brands, including BMI, Thomas Cook, Excel Airways and Air Europe. At the value end of the spectrum, where Monarch operated, brands must walk a tightrope delicately balancing high costs, low customer loyalty, fierce competition, and a range of external factors over which they has no control. In the ruthless world of commercial Darwinism, only the fittest survive.  

But few fail as dramatically as Monarch did, and the conditions that led to its collapse have, arguably, worsened. Competition among carriers is just as fierce, fuel prices remain high largely because of a war that’s now being fought, there’s a cost of living crisis to navigate, and travel as a whole is still recovering from a pandemic that decimated the industry. 

So to say it’s an interesting time to launch an airline is an understatement – and it begs the question, can a brand that’s been so damaged ever fully recover? According to the reporting, Monarch itself is keen to draw a line under its recent past, stressing that its previous owner has departed and that the new team is very confident that there is a place for the ‘spotty M’ (as Monarch’s crown logo was called) among the other names crowding the skies.

We must assume they’ve done their diligence and made an assessment that the residual equity in the Monarch name is strong enough to justify its resurrection. But launching any airline is difficult, let alone one where the gravitational pull of a recent failure could easily be enough to prevent it taking flight. What can they do that’s different enough to override the memory that some customers will have of being left stranded six years ago – when there are other brands which have since taken that market share and shown themselves to be reliable and resilient when the turbulence which goes with running an airline gets rough? Or have they made the calculation that when it comes to low-cost flying, short memories and price trump brand every time - and that the Monarch name, despite what the comms about building on 55 years of brand heritage may say, is just a useful vehicle of convenience because starting with some name recognition is better than starting with none?

It will be interesting to see how they re-emerge ,and what they end up standing for. Is it enough to be simply about price and schedule, or will they need to find another jewel to add to the famous crown that allows them to successfully differentiate from the rest of the pack.

Maybe a tarnished crown is better than no crown at all.