Speaking in front of the Transport Select Committee yesterday, Grayling said the carrier’s collapse earlier this month was “on a scale we haven’t seen before” leading him to believe there was “no way” the trade could have dealt with the fallout on its own.

The Monarch repatriation mission will reportedly cost the government around £60 million after it swooped in to bring home 110,000 overseas customers in an operation which has seen the CAA operate more than 500 flights over the past two weeks.

“If it had been a small number of people and plenty of [aircraft] capacity and these people would have been insured, then we would have let the industry handle it,” Grayling told MPs.

“But 110,000 – there’s absolutely no possible way in which there was enough capacity available at what is still a relatively busy time of year.

“The view we took was if we do not do this then we are going to have a large amount people stranded around the Mediterranean unable to get home for a considerable amount of time so we had no choice…that was the judgement,” he added.

During the committee session Grayling denied that the government had set a precedent with its handling of the failure although he conceded: “It’s perfectly possible we may do the same in future.”

He also told members of the committee that he believed Monarch owners Greybull Capital had a “moral obligation to contribute” to the cost of the repatriation.

When asked about the issue, Grayling said: “There’s no formal legal mechanism that we can use, but in terms of the principle I completely agree.

“I would hope that if any of the creditors end up with money in pocket, whether they might indeed consider doing that.”