2010 News - Flights - The Monarch Group announces the appointment of new Group CEO
20 09 2010
The Monarch Group (“Monarch”), one of the UK’s leading travel groups, is pleased to announce that it has appointed Conrad Clifford as its new Group Chief Executive Officer. Conrad has almost 30 years’ industry experience, including holding senior positions at Cathay Pacific Airways and Virgin Atlantic Airways, and more recently with Virgin Nigeria Airways and Emirates Airline. Conrad will join Monarch on 1 December 2010.
Iain Rawlinson, Executive Chairman of Monarch, said: “We are delighted that Conrad has agreed to take up this appointment, which completes our senior management team. We conducted a thorough search and selection process and had a number of high quality candidates to choose from.
“This appointment concludes the initial stage of the ongoing programme of transformation and renewal of the Monarch Group that has been underway since the beginning of this year. The Group is now in a strong position to develop all its core activities and to continue the rebuilding of margins and the development of its well established travel brands. Conrad’s wealth of industry experience and strong track record of leadership make him ideally suited to lead Monarch through the next exciting stage of its development.”
On behalf of the shareholders, Fabio Mantegazza, said: “We welcome this appointment, which marks an important step in positioning our group for the next phase in its long history. We very much look forward to Conrad joining the senior team, and we welcome him to Monarch.”
Conrad Clifford commented, “I am delighted to be joining Monarch. It has a fantastic history, strong brands and a great future ahead of it. I am looking forward to working closely with the team to help Monarch fulfil its potential.”
END
Further information about Conrad Clifford
Conrad Clifford was most recently Vice-President UK and Ireland of Emirates Airline. He joined Emirates in 2009 from Virgin Nigeria Airways, which he helped establish and where he was CEO for four years. Conrad began his aviation career as a trainee with Cathay Pacific Airways. He then joined Virgin Atlantic Airways, where he held roles as General Manager – Commercial and Commercial Director. In 2002, he became Commercial Director of Menzies Aviation Group, rising to Director, Asia, South Pacific and Africa.
Further information about the Monarch Group
See Notes to Editors.
NOTES TO EDITORS
INFORMATION ON THE MONARCH GROUP
The Monarch Group (the “Group”) contains some of the best-established names in the British travel sector. Customer care and service lie at the heart of the Group’s business approach, and the Group enjoys high levels of repeat business from both business and retail customers in all its operations. When the Group was founded in its current form in 1967 it had 146 staff - today this has grown to over 3,000 highly-trained personnel.
Monarch Holdings plc
The holding company of the Group is Monarch Holdings plc. The principal subsidiaries are Monarch Airlines, Monarch Aircraft Engineering, First Aviation and a number of household-name tour operators such as Cosmos Holidays, Avro, Archers Direct and Cosmos Tourama, as well as the online hotel booking service somewhere2stay.com.
Monarch Airlines
A major part of the Monarch Group, Monarch Airlines operates a fleet of 30 aircraft on scheduled and charter flights from a number of UK airports, including Birmingham, London Gatwick, London Luton and Manchester. Flying to more than 50 destinations worldwide, it carries in excess of 6 million sector passengers every year. The Airline is also a key supplier of aircraft and seats to the tour operating industry.
Monarch Airlines’ main activities are organised as follows:
• Scheduled Activities – low fare, convenient flights that can be booked direct online, by telephone, or through travel agents, which operate to a total of 16 destinations primarily to Spain, Portugal, the Canary and Balearic Islands, Cyprus and Turkey.
• Charter Activities – through First Aviation the Group is the UK's largest independent charter airline, flying more than 2.5 million sector passengers to over 50 mid and long-haul destinations worldwide every year. The Group has a wide range of long established relationships with tour operators, from household-names to specialist travel businesses, while the ad-hoc division services the needs of major organisations, corporations and sporting institutions.
• Airline Operations – newly organised separately within the Group’s aviation activities, this division manages all aspects of the safe and efficient airline operations supporting the Scheduled and Charter Activities, and Tour Operations.
Other aviation activities include cargo operations and aircraft leasing.
Tour Operations
Having been in operation for some 50 years, Cosmos Holidays is one of the oldest and well established brands in UK tour operating, and provides holidays to over 1.3 million sector customers in 65 destinations annually. Cosmos Coach Tours remains the world’s largest European coach tour operator with escorted coach touring programmes throughout Europe, North America and worldwide. Cosmos remains the UK’s largest independent tour operator. The Cosmos air and coach programmes offer a wide range of high quality products and great value holidays to both short and long haul destinations. Also offered are the lifestyle programmes through its long haul Distant Dreams, Villas with Pools, All Inclusive and Dream Weddings brochures. Part of the Cosmos Holidays programme since 2002, the accommodation only brand, somewhere2stay, supplies hotel, apartment and villa accommodation around the world to the UK travel trade.
Also based within the tour operating business is Avro, the UK’s leading charter flight-only operator and voted the UK’s Best Seat-Only operator by travel agents for the last 10 years consecutively, which offers a broad range of charter seat availability, duration and prices - offering flights to some 40 destinations from up to 8 UK airports. This business is expanding to meet the demand from the growing dynamic packaging sector and from overseas property buying especially in Eastern Mediterranean destinations such as Cyprus, Turkey and Bulgaria, selling overall in excess of 1 million flight sectors annually. The tour operations also include Archers Direct is one of the UK’s leading direct-sell tour operators offering a selection of escorted coach touring, resort stay and cruising holidays worldwide.
Retail and Online Activities
A newly established division, Retail and Online Activities is focused on the strengthening and development of the Group’s existing online and retail capability for all of its products in Scheduled and Charter Activities and Tour Operations. Based in Luton, it operates in support of all the Group’s locations and customer relationships.
Monarch Aircraft Engineering
MAEL is the technical division of the Monarch Group, catering for the engineering and maintenance requirements of the Monarch fleet as well as providing services to some of the best-known airlines around the world. With hangar facilities at London Luton and Manchester airports, and line maintenance stations across the UK and worldwide, the company employs some 700 staff. A sister company Monarch Technical Support has a strong reputation for the provision of highly qualified engineers to airlines, third party maintenance organisations and corporate fixed base operations.