Flybe-V1

[Albert Hall]

I decided to take a few days out from the thread after the aggressive reaction to my previous post. Since then several others have said much of what I would have replied anyway and the discussion is live.

There is a strong view, publicly stated by some quite prominent people, that the Flybe re-start is driven only by slots and the value of Flybe's holding. I don't need to say sorry for sharing that view or noting that it has been expressed elsewhere.

There is no longer a bunch of domestic routes served by Flybe at the time of its collapse needing to be flown. As every week passes, more of the Flybe routes are being taken up by others - easyJet has taken up the second airline position on BHX-AMS and has taken over BHX-EDI/GLA, Ryanair has announced new services to Knock on ex-Flybe routes, Loganair, Blue Islands, Stobart Air and Eastern have all taken up large or medium chunks of the former Flybe network. BACF has gone on LCY-BHD and so on. And on. And on.

Unless those behind the re-incarnation of Flybe are totally ignoring all of this, there are hardly any gaps left for the reincarnated airline to fill. The other airlines have the market pretty well covered, or at least those bits of the market where there is money to be made.

A decent venture capitalist (and by all accounts the guy from Cyrus is sharp in every meaning of the word) can't fail to have spotted this. It lends to speculation there must be some other motive - and it's a short step from there to the question of value in the Flybe slots.

The new start-up has lost some key people who decided they wouldn't take the 40% pay cut imposed recently. I have spoken to one and they were pleased to get out. Times are tough all round but you can't launch an airline without postholders.

I assume we will get no closer to understanding the real plan until Flybe 2 is licenced and this all plays out. The recent management departure had the same suspicions. So as clarity won't come from Flybe / Cyrus the big question for me is on what grounds Loganair are obviously raising objections and whether these could and should be published. It could be one of a few things - the market doesn't need a new airline, foreign ownership rules with a US investor, slot blocking and possibly something else instead. In other words, do they really have a case to object, instead of objecting for objection's sake?

That's my view. If you don't like it, having a go is all very well but doesn't make me wrong and you right - or vice versa!