British Airways owner IAG could swoop on Monarch’s former slots at Gatwick Airport as a way to boost its fledgling low-cost airline Level, the group’s chief executive Willie Walsh has said.

Mr Walsh confirmed he was interested in the collapsed airline’s slots at Gatwick but was unsure yet about how or when they would become available.

After Monarch went into administration earlier this month, analysts calculated that its airport berths could be its most valuable assets, worth up to £60m. The stricken carrier’s administrators launched a judicial review yesterday in a bid to maintain ownership of the slots as they can be sold to help pay its creditors.

Should Monarch be stripped of the slots, they would be redistributed by Airport Co-ordination Limited, which organises slot redistribution for the aviation industry.

Mr Walsh said that in such a process a new entrant airline would get precedence and he noted his company’s Level and Iberia Express did not operate out of the airport – one of the UK’s busiest – at present.

“The interest in Gatwick is not just from British Airways,” Mr Walsh said. “We would only have priority with a new entrant and there are parts of the company that would be new entrants.” These included Level and Iberia Express.

Level launched in March as a low-cost, long-haul airline with flights from Barcelona to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires and Punta Cana, in the Dominican Republic.

Mr Walsh’s comments came as IAG reported it was on track for record full-year profits after benefitting from a booming trans-Atlantic business and the failure of rival airlines.

The company, which also owns Aer Lingus and Iberia, is on track for profit of “roughly” €3bn (£2.66bn) this year, in part thanks to robust demand for flights to North America.

Pre-tax profits soared 22.5pc to €1.2bn on the back of revenues of €6.6bn for the three-month period, helped in part by its hedging strategy, which protected it from commodity price rises in the period.

Shares in the group fell by nearly 5pc to 638p but Mr Walsh dismissed this as profit-taking by investors given its share price had recently been at a record high of 670p.

Mr Walsh said that some of his airlines had benefited from the collapse of rivals, including increased demand at Gatwick on the back of Monarch’s demise.

He also pointed to more interest from customers in Italy due to the uncertainty over Alitalia’s future. The Italian carrier filed for administration in May and a decision about its future has now been delayed by its administrators until next year.

The chief executive reiterated that he did not want to bid for Alitalia and that his only interest in Air Berlin – which also collapsed earlier this year – had been its budget subsidiary Niki, which has since been sold to Lufthansa.

Read full originally published story at: telegraph.co.uk