The chief executive of the Monarch Group has denied that the company is up for sale and insisted that it is looking at potential acquisitions.
Andrew Swaffield was speaking at an airline industry event and his comments follow weeks of speculation about the company’s future.
"We’ve got our eyes open on potential acquisitions that we might be able to make ourselves with Greybull’s support and we haven’t denied the fact that there has been interest in us from potential acquirers," he said, according to news agency Reuters.
"But the ’for sale’ sign is not up and as far as we’re concerned our focus is on delivering a successful and sustainable profitable business."
Conflicting stories have recently emerged about Monarch’s future. Some have suggested that owner Greybull Capital, which rescued the business back in October 2014, was looking to sell, while others have said it is looking to buy another airline.
The huge amount of news leaking from Monarch indicates that something is going on but at this stage nobody is quite sure how it will pan out.