Looking at the Flybe investor presentation and what's going on around, there are a few quite interesting and worrying signs here.
They said very little about Heathrow in the H1 results and you would think some performance update on the LHR services would be front and centre of the announcement if it was going remotely well. Hidden away in the investor presentation is a waterfall graph of changes from last year to this, and one of the entries is a £4.4m loss against "airport developments" which is noted to include Heathrow.
Start-up losses are to be expected, but the summer (included in these results) is usually stronger than the winter (yet to come). It's guiding towards a loss of somewhere between £8m and £10m for Heathrow this year - ouch.
Flybe had one of the highest credit card surcharges for a long time and has now dropped that to £1 (and I think it has to be abolished by law completely some time next year). The timing of that being dropped, during September, means that they had the full benefit of the surcharges in H1 which will reduce significantly into the H2 results. Another hit to come.
The H1 results were also pretty thin on how things are going in Scotland except to say that the partnership has started. Reading the local press suggests that they are not doing well - reports of the E170 with very low loads and Flybe having to compromise by giving free baggage to pax on routes competing with Flybe. Very messy indeed.
The full-year results will make for very interesting reading by the time all of this plays out.
Flybe announces it will match free luggage allowance as battle with Loganair continues | Shetland News