Well it might not be totally dead, but Covid 19 aside, who in their right mind would launch an airline heading towards the winter? And where are the crews being re-hired and trained, and aeroplanes being prepared? You can’t run W patterns into Heathrow or anywhere else, using one knackered Dash8.
Cyrus Capital are not the regional airline White Knight that some people think they are. I don’t know the exact figure but in conjunction with both Virgin and Stobart, they pumped in £100 million (apparently, although I’m sure some will dispute that exact figure, but that’s not the point). They’re a Finance Company, there to make money and you can “bet your bottom dollar” that they want to claw as much of their investment back, make a bit more if they can and then sell it on and head off into the sunset.
If anyone is bored, have a quick scan of Tom Bower’s book on Branson and you’ll see Cyrus were involved with Virgin America, and they didn’t last too long did they? So whilst things might be bubbling away in the background, and I know they are, the whole thing looks pretty clueless in the present climate.