Originally Posted by
Cazza_fly
Not necessarily? Afterall it is IAG that the reports are saying are interested NOT BA who are indeed of course a brand of the group. Realistically there would be no gain in rebranding the airline to anything BA. By doing so they would need to align the product to that of BA / Cityflyer, so not to have yet more variation and inconsistency service offering on BAs network. Things such as Club Europe would need to be offered, a product that could cost more than they make to offer on many of Flybe regional routes if even needed at all. It also increases costs and overheads.
The best bet would be to keep Flybe completely separate of any of the groups current branding just like all their other takeovers. Being prominently in the UK, it's understandable that they could potentially allign more with BA on some of the network by increasing code sharing and perhaps using the Flybe brand on some of their routes that would work better with a single class / low cost carrier e.g the Cityflyer regional summer routes but booked under the Flybe brand and service but using Cityflyers spare capacity at these tumes
I think the opposite. If IAG were interested, I think the real opportunity to increase value would be by rebranding to some variation of BA, as that is IAG's 'premium' brand in the UK, and Flybe is very much UK focused. BA seem to have been successful in positioning themselves brand wise above the low cost carriers and although fares are a factor they don't have to compete directly on fares. I think that is exactly what is needed to increase revenue for Flybe, because at the moment as Flybe they too much in the low cost carrier space.
They wouldn't need to need to match other BA brand standards exactly, as there are already some differences anyway between BA and BA Cityflyer. If the branded Flybe something else e.g. BA Express, BA Regional, FlyBA etc there could be further differentiation whilst still capitalising on the BA brand.
Rather than Club Europe being a cost, it would be an opportunity to increase revenue, as really it would be little more than providing a sandwich, and the seating configuration on the Q400's would mean they don't even have to block out any seats.