If I had not still been around when the phonecall came in (I had already been offloaded remember?) then I would have been out of departures and on my way home. I would have missed the flight, my meeting and would have been claiming a refund from Flybe. Not good for anyone concerned, and all becuase of mis-information given out by Flybe customer service reps.
Just to let you know Anne if you offload yourself from a flight no matter how delayed it is, you will not get a penny out of flybe.
Unless you are over 2 hours delayed. Then you should be issued with a LRV.
The only way you get cash back was if the flight was cancelled.
As for the Belfast a/c that was going to happen, unitl the crew decied to take the aircraft with said tech problem. Things can change very quickly with flybe. Once the crew said that they would take the a/c they were then ready for boarding, a matter of seconds.
So it seems you were kept up to date with what was happening as you boarded the flight and knew that flybe had plan in place to get you to SOU by using another a/c.