Britain's Monarch Airlines collapsed on Monday, causing the cancellation of hundreds of thousands of holidays, after falling victim to intense competition for flights and a weaker pound.
The failure of Monarch, the largest British airline to go bust, will affect nearly 900,000 passengers in total. It marooned more than 100,000 tourists abroad, prompting what was billed as the country's biggest peacetime repatriation effort.
Its demise added to turbulence in the European airline industry after Air Berlin and Alitalia filed for insolvency this year. Ryanair has also been forced to cancel thousands of flights because of problems finding enough pilots to fly them.