Thanks
cloud1 for the reassurance -I guess I must have been unlucky a few times to encounter this.
As you posted on the Eastern thread:
There is no point in arguing with you because you already have an opinion which you will stick to based on 'experience' without actually looking at the bigger picture, and I feel pitty for you in that respect because you claim to have knowledge about the aviation industry. It is nothing personal and please do not take offense, but it is clear that there are many users of this forum that fall into a particular category and it isn't pretty - namely 'one or two flights and they know the whole operation'. You may be an experienced traveler but when your flying on that one flight just think about the other 450 operating that day
I don't take offence at all. I welcome the debate and your informed contribution (and others) helps me understand why occasionally I'm stuck on the ground. I am only a humble SLF having spent some 30 years plus flying typically 80 sectors per year, a mix of puddle jumping from the IoM and many journeys beyond. During that time I've travelled with many airlines long haul and short. I also hold a private pilot's licence which includes an IR. This is not a boast, merely stated to try to show you that I'm not some Fx wanabee type.
My threepennyworth:
- FlyBe's integration of BACon was a huge challenge, but is now seen to have been successful (and a brilliant deal, by the way). But during that integration process punctuality suffered, and FlyBe gained a poor reputation among former BACon pax.
- With integration complete punctuality is much better, but any delay is jumped on to support the arguement that FlyBe's record is poor.
- FlyBe operate to a number of locations (IoM, CI) where fog is not unknown and these inevitable delays or cancellations lower the reported on-time statistics. There is no opportunity to balance this, by say gaining a credit for early arrival, because the entire aviation infrastructure (ATC, handling agents etc) are not geared up to deal with anything more than a 5 minute early off blocks time.
- Aircraft are worked as much as possible (maximising asset use is not soley the preserve of FlyBe - the LoCos pioneered it and legacy carriers such as BA have been quick to follow). This means there is less slack in the timetable if something goes wrong
- This high airframe utilisation means that the availibility of backup aircraft is limited. So an more than one airframe going "tech" requires some juggling of the schedules to solve the problem. This means that a flight may be delayed because an aircraft has been "borrowed" to solve a problem elsewhere. This spreads the delay around the system in such a way that all flights can be completed that day, but means that more flights may be affected. That in turn means more flights are delayed. Although the passengers do get to where they are going this approach certainly doesn't flatter the statistics.
So where am I going with this? Well basically FlyBe are a profitable airline at a time when the airline business in general is not. They do this by keeping fares low (but not ridiculously so) and they attract more punters to fly. They keep the costs down and cut out as much as they can. Inevitably then overall service suffers when something breaks.
In short you get what you pay for and the days of measuring an airline's performance only by its punctuality are sadly now gone!