airsouthwest
The CAA report into their refusal didn't make particularly good reading for many other conclusions, IMO. They wanted to restart the airline and continue it as legal entity without any of the legacy debt. Further to that, the resignation of one of their directors around the time of that report does add fuel to the fire they were only after a few things.
It doesn't all quite add up, the EY administrators report state that whilst Flybe has been granted grandfathering rights the administrators will want to sell those to repay creditors.
If they can grab the slots and sell them we know, in pre Covid times, the value is huge. Air NZ sold their slot for $27m only last March. The potential value of the slots Thyme could gain far outweighs the costs of a few second hand Dash's and start up costs. (I appreciate they're currently only able to be used for a few destinations but I guess one could argue that was made by an EU court regulating the sale of BMI - could that be potentially challenged in a post Brexit UK courtroom?)
If they really wanted to restart an airline surely they could just buy the brand off the administrator and restart as a new legal entity / or start afresh with a clean new image?