another forum says that FlyBE will take ownership of slots at Heathrow in 2 and a half months and there is a 3 month extension for APD which may be rolled forward.
These slots will become assets at that stage and will either be sold to the highest bidder or directed to Virgin. If so, you have to wonder why Virgin won't put up the working capital rather than generating all this adverse publicity.
Here is what they said:
I checked the terms of the LHR / BMI remedy slots at address : ec.europa.eu/competition/mergers/cases/decisions/m6447_20120330_20212_2452290_EN.pdf
[1.3 Grandfathering of Slots 1.3.1As a general rule, the Slots obtained by the Prospective Entrant from IAG as a result of the Slot Release Procedure shall be used only to provide a Competitive Air Service on the Relevant City Pair for which the Prospective Entrant has requested them from IAG through the Slot Release Procedure. These Slots cannot be used on another city pair unless the Prospective Entrant has operated the Relevant City Pair for which these Slots have been transferred for a number of full consecutive IATA Seasons (“Utilisation Period”). 1.3.2The Prospective Entrant will be deemed to have grandfathering rights for the Slots once appropriate use of the Slots has been made on the Relevant City Pair for the Utilisation Period. In this regard, once the Utilisation Period has elapsed, the Prospective Entrant will be entitled to use the Slots obtained on the basis of these Commitments exclusively to operate services on any European Short-haul City Pair or the Identified Long-haul City Pairs (“Grandfathering”).
On order to obtain grandfathering rights on their LHR slots Flybe will have to continue operating these routes for 3 IATA seasons.
They started operating the routes in March 2017 flybe website location /media/news/1612/20 so they will obtain these rights in 2 and a half months.
If Flybe make it that far they will own an additional saleable asset. If they can sell these slots then they can settle any APD liability. It seems notable to me that the period of the deferment is 3 months rolling.
The press states that Stobart and Cyrus don't want to put in any more money. It wouldn't surprise me if the £100m + investment is coming from VS to purchase those slots outright.
those slots outright.