Monarch chief Andrew Swaffield 'devastated' at closure

Monarch chief executive Andrew Swaffield has said he is "absolutely devastated" at the airline's collapse.

Mr Swaffield said the decision not to continue trading was made on Saturday night after estimating that losses for 2018 would be "well over £100m".

He told the BBC's Today programme that Monday was a "heartbreaking day".

Meanwhile, the first stage of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) rescue scheme led to nearly 12,000 people being brought back to the UK on Monday.

A similar number of people are due to return to the UK on Tuesday.

Monarch Airlines ceased trading early on Monday, leading to nearly 1,900 job losses and the cancellation of all its flights and holidays.

The collapse of the 50-year old company is the largest ever for a UK airline.

'Great family'

Mr Swaffield blamed the company's demise on "terrorism and the closure of some markets like Turkey, Tunisia and Egypt," which led to more competition on routes to Spain and Portugal.

"Flights were being squeezed into a smaller number of destinations and a 25% reduction in ticket prices on our routes created a massive economic challenge for our short-haul network," he told the BBC.

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He explained that it was impossible for the airline to keep on flying beyond the weekend once the decision to close had been taken.

"The UK insolvency framework doesn't allow airlines to continue flying unlike in Germany and Italy, where we see that Air Berlin and Alitalia continued when they were in administration.

"We tried to operate a normal schedule all day Sunday so we could be ready for the CAA rescue flights on Monday morning without causing a massive backlog."