Thats an interesting thought Hudson.
May I just say that I rather suspect that the sheer sums of money involved (which are not JF's) might act as a moderating influence on any innate tendency to chuck proverbials out of the pram!! This after all is a man who wishes to show the city and the investing public that their money is safe in his hands!!
On the BACON buy out front, interesting thought, but the scale of the operation would make that very difficult in terms of attracting the venture capital needed to not only take over the operation but also invest in the new equipment which is so desperately needed.
The principle and overriding reason that BACON failed to make a profit was because it was based on an eighties business model and ham strung by archaic BA costs. All the company infrastructures, systems, operations and AOC are there just waiting for the right direction and investment.
Although much hot air has been blasted around this forum about our Ts and Cs the reality is that these are a small part of the overall picture and the reality is that given the bad mangement we have and lack of investment I dare to suggest that we are actualy not half a bad operation.
As JF knows there is no shortage of people willing to chuck money at this industry, none more so than the aircraft manufacturers who I assume have substantialy capitalised Flybe's growth projections. We are where Flybe was a few years ago and six months in this industry is like twelve years in any other. Huge profits and massive losses go with the territory in this industry and there always seem to be those who are prepared to gamble on it.
All in all Id say that some sort of staff buyout could work but only given very strong leadership from a lead investor and a totaly new management structure.