Originally Posted by airsouthwest
Thank you Deano, it's appreciated, sadly these day's many people don't even bother or have the heart to say it.
From my own experience it was a particular manager, who is well known as B*tch by a lot of the engineering staff at HQ. I don't want to say much more than that encase anyone knows who i'm talking about.
I generally feel sorry for a lot of Flybe staff, apart from a few odd ones, most of them are good people who quite frankly I feel deserve better. My problem with Flybe isn't the airline as in pilots, cabin crew, check-in, ground staff. But those in the offices and higher up who generally seem to think they are better than anyone else and can treat those staff like a piece of dog muck. Whilst Flybe have made small profits in the last years it is only a profit for that specific tax year, in general Flybe still has about £90 Million worth of debt to clear before actually being a profitable airline again, hence why I say, is a brand refresh of a brand which was so heavily pushed by the previous CEO and has become so well known really necessary?
If I was running the airline myself, my main priority would be getting by day to day to a profit, sorting out legacy issues, and clearing all debts before doing any kind of rebrand. Issues like the releasing of some Q400s would have probably happened if Saad had stayed on, and I do know he was very determined to remove the E195s, if it wasn't for him there wouldn't be a Flybe anyway, there was only 3 days worth of cash flow when he took charge before they declared bankruptcy, Beside's this its actually been the Aviation Services side that has propped up the entire business for the last 2 years. I do know that Christine very much dislikes the Q400 and wanted to replace them with ATR 72's, but releasing older aircraft was chosen instead, im not sure as to why, Maybe because the stakeholders refused to give her the money to purchase or sign up to a new large leasing agreement for them? You would also have to consider the cost of retraining all your pilots, cabin crew, engineers and other ground staff. As well as buying an ATR 72 simulator for the training academy.
Another thing to clear up, In a previous comment I put that Flybe claimed to get an unfair deal compared to train companies, please see:
http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/articl...y-compensation
No worries, airsouthwest, any time. I know what you mean but for most people I'd imagine it's that awkward "I really don't know what to say to make things better" so alot of people just stay quiet but one thing that shocked me when I was attending chemo with my relative was the true extent of the problem and how rife it is, it was a true eye opener and mind blowing.
It's a shame that manager was like that, I did experience some really cold dealings with 1 manager giving me the company line etc but I then swapped to another one and it was like chalk and cheese. In your darkest hour of need all you want is support, I was even threatened with disciplinary procedures.
I agree, Flybe should really start making money first then once that happens they should put the CAPEX to one side to get all the aircraft repainted within a year or something, now there's going to be 4 liveries flying around for years, the old one, the purple, the new one and the white.
I think you're right, buying the ATR or even a regional jet would incur serious expense, expense Flybe simply don't have. New aircraft, even leasing them doesn't come cheep, the disappointing thing is they are throwing more money at the Q400 to improve reliability, do you know how many years I've heard that? Yet here it is, still suffering from tech problems and the fleet isn't getting any younger. When it works it works very, very well but when it doesn't then it's a rocky road towards EU261.
Thanks for the link, I read that on LinkedIn yesterday morning.