Chatting away to a few people in recent days, a couple in fairly high-up places, and they had some very interesting views of Flybe 2.
It is exactly as JSCL suggests in terms of Cyrus trying to get some of their losses back through the administration process, getting their mitts on those slots which are worth something. There's apparently still a legal battle going on about the Heathrow slots etc etc and Cyrus took security over the slots in return for some of the loans it advanced to Flybe 1.
It sounds like this could be an elaborate deception. To get the slots from Flybe 1, Flybe 2 has to have its licences in place. It doesn't want to buy Flybe 1 for all of the reasons above, but has to have an aircraft to do a proving flight, be awarded its AOC and then receive its Operating Licence. The ageing Austrian Q400 is the cheapest way of doing that and it sounds like hardly any of the other leasing companies will deal with them as none believe the plan is credible (and they might be right!). Get the licences, transfer the slots, sell them and pack up after never carrying a passenger. Solves the problem of branding for sure.
They must have had to put a business plan forward to the CAA and I wouldn't suspect that plan says this. But this is increasingly the suspicion across the industry judging by what I'm hearing.