Originally Posted by
cavokblues
A quote from the Times article above.
"Administrators said the company was hurt by a delay in the delivery of 17 further aircraft that would have helped build out its network and give it scale to compete. They were held up by delays in the global supply chain for aircraft."
Utter drivel. If you're losing £5m already I'm not sure how you would have faired with another 17 aircraft on top.
Maybe not entirely. They were constantly having to cancel flights and change/reduce their schedule (sometimes at short notice), at least partly because there were persistent delays with aircraft due for delivery, and coming out of maintenance. Some of the ex-Flybe Mk1 aircraft that they were due to take could not be as they were not in a fit state after 2 years parked on cold/wet European airfields, allegedly.
Had some of those aircraft been available in a more timely fashion, they could have built resilience and a more reliable schedule, which may have delivered more revenue and resulted in less of the costs (which must have been significant) associated with frequent cancellations. Attempts were made to mitigate by bringing in aircraft from LOT, for example, but the damage was probably already done.
Having said all that, some of the route decisions seemed odd to say the least. None of that was the fault of the people operating the service, who didn't deserve the situation that has now transpired.