Monarch Airlines, also known as and trading as Monarch, is a British charter and scheduled airline based at Luton Airport. It is one of the United Kingdom's largest charter airlines, operating to Europe, the United States, the Caribbean, India and Africa, serving mainly leisure destinations. It also operates scheduled flights to desinations in the Mediterranean, Canary Islands, Cyprus, Egypt, Greece and Turkey.

The airline's headquarters are at Luton Airport with other bases at Birmingham, Gatwick and Manchester. It is the oldest UK airline that has not changed its original name. Its workforce numbers around 2,070.

Monarch Airlines carried around 5.9 million passengers during 2011. In June 2010, the airline was ranked 58th in the Sunday Times Top Track 100 listing the biggest privately held British companies in terms of their sales. The company holds a United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Type A Operating Licence, permitting it to carry passengers, cargo and mail on aircraft with 20 or more seats.

Gatwick Airport (IATA: LGW, ICAO: EGKK) is located 3.1 mi (5.0 km) north of the centre of Crawley,West Sussex, and 29.5 mi (47.5 km) south of Central London. Also known as London Gatwick, it is London's second largest international airport and second busiest by total passenger traffic in the United Kingdom after Heathrow. Furthermore, Gatwick is Europe's leading airport for point-to-point flights and has the world's busiest single-use runway averaging 52 aircraft movements an hour. Its two terminals – North and South – cover an area of 810,000 sq ft (75,000 m²) and 1,300,000 sq ft (120,000 m²) respectively.

In 2011, over 33.6 million passengers passed through Gatwick.

Charter airlines generally prefer Gatwick over Heathrow as a base for London and the South East of England. From 1978 to 2008, many flights to and from the United States used Gatwick because of restrictions on the use of Heathrow implemented in the Bermuda II agreement between the UK and the US.. Under the agreement Heathrow allowed the right for only two US carrier and two UK carrier to serve flights to the United States. Currently, US Airways is the only US carrier that still serves Gatwick from the US. The airport is a base for scheduled operators Aer Lingus, British Airways (BA), EasyJet, Flybe, Monarch Airlines and Virgin Atlantic, as well as charter airlines including Thomas Cook Airlines and Thomson Airways. Gatwick is unique amongst London's airports in having a significant airline presence representing each of the three main airline business models: full service, low/no frills and charter. As of January 2011, these respectively accounted for 37, 51 and 12% of total passenger traffic.