They weren't a cheap ticket and they still were losing money. This time around they'd be up against the LCC's willing to fly domestics against them because they have aircraft and crew sat around doing little. There are relatively few airports where you can't operate a lightly loaded 737/320 and the ones that are too small are already served by the likes of Logan and Stobart. The likes of easy already operate profitably on routes like LGW-JER BRS-IOM BFS-GLA. Absolutely nothing stopping them operating domestics out of CWL EXT BOH LBA NCL MAN BHX SOU NQY NWI. As long as they break even they may as well use their spare capacity to feed into their larger hubs like LGW LTN BRS MAN to facilitate onward to travel to the huge orange European network. Ditto Ryanair via STN DUB.
Outside of our aviation bubble is Flybe that strong a brand? It was Jersey European until well into this century. Most news headlines about FlyBe involve either falling share prices, doubts about its future and then its collapse. It was always a confused brand, was I supposed to be low cost? U.K. Regional businessman's commute? Family holiday to Malaga? As a brand it seemed to have a lot less pedigree and affection than Monarch and I don't see anybody putting much of a value on that brand.
at the end of the day this is a vulture fund. Not a long term investor looking to build a viable airline business. Don't get your hopes up.