No-one in the financial press is suggesting this is an airline about to fail, and such talk in non-financial circles is reckless and ill-informed. They are still pretty profitable, cash rich and key numbers are generally fairly resilient.
It is simply a case that they raised a lot of cash in the markets only 5 months ago based on future earnings and growth projections which have now been revised severely downwards. They are still projecting a profit of c£22m in 2011/12, but previously they were looking at £35m+. The investors are not happy.
They do have some big orders to fund and deploy, and if these end up being used for fleet renewal rather than growth that will also derail the medium term expansion projections at the time of the IPO.
As I said before, with the UK market fairly saturated and, at best, flat for growth, they need to pull off one of these much vaunted 'deals' in mainland Europe to rebuild a little market confidence , and show their investors that their eventual growth plans are deliverable.
Shareholders may be feeling a little duped at the moment, but I can't see that pax and staff have too much to be concerned about.