The engineering arm of collapsed airline Monarch went into administration on 4 January.

Established in 1967 and based at London Luton Airport, MAEL employed about 579 people around the UK and Europe.

The company completed a restructuring in October 2018, after which a number of MAEL’s customers sought alternative
suppliers.

That made the business unsustainable in its existing form, and it began talks with interested parties about selling all — or parts of — the business.

MAEL has transferred most of its line maintenance operations to other companies, thereby protecting jobs and ensuring continuity of service for the airlines that use those facilities on a daily basis.

Its UK line maintenance operations at Gatwick, Birmingham, East Midlands, Newcastle and Glasgow airports have largely been transferred to Morson Group, with the Luton Airport line maintenance operations transferred to Storm Aviation. Certain Gatwick-based employees have been transferred to Boeing.

Operations at Manchester and Birmingham airports were transferred to Flybe following the cessation of a maintenance contract in late November 2018.

Collectively, these transfers ensure continuing employment for 182 of MAEL’s employees.

The base maintenance business, undertaking aircraft overhaul and major maintenance programmes in hangers at Luton and Birmingham, attracted no offers, resulting in the redundancy of around 250 people.

All remaining activities of MAEL continue to trade while the administrators seek buyers. The remaining 200 MAEL staff are largely Luton-based, and most of them will be made redundant.

David Pike, restructuring partner at KPMG and joint administrator, said: “Following the administration of other Monarch entities in 2017, MAEL sought to build its customer base to replace the loss of business from the former airline but it inherited significant debts and claims.

“Every effort has been made to turn the business round, including launching a CVA that sought to resolve these legacy debts.

"Unfortunately, a number of customers then reduced or sought to terminate their relationship with MAEL, further adversely impacting the business.”