FlyBE - 5

[marlowe]

Waaf BA Cityflyer havent come out of nowhere, they have always been there, just called various other names thats all. ie BA Connect or try BA Citiexpress or you can go back further to when there was Brymon,Bral and Bar!!!!!!! I can see BA ****tyflyer not having a base in EDI though in the future.

[air2000dub]

LOganair/Flybe

Recent rumour is that Scott Grier has bought the name of Scottish Airways
from British Airways. Strong rumour also about them becoming a Franchise
of Flybe..... Mr Grier has been seen at EXT HQ a few times.

[Richard Taylor]

Scottish Airways?!

They'll be bringing back the Viscount next...

[Skipness One Echo]

BA's whole business model depends on feeding long haul at Heathrow. So Hell would freeze over before the Anglo Scottish Shuttle got binned. BA is a London focused company - the reason for the relaunch of LCY-GLA

[PT6Driver]

DB6 it's 32kts

[FlyerFoto]

I'll try and get a word with my sister, who is involved with the Islay Tourist Board (good excuse for distillery visits!!!) and see if there are any rumours circulating there...

[BAladdy]

Loganair flybe merger

I remember when I worked for BA on the ground in EDI Loganair's services were very prown to weather delays especially in the winter and with flybe record for flight opertations after the BA connect merger. Will Flybe and Loganair be rebranded Flymaybe and flynever

[Drink Up Thee Cider]

Flymaybe. Forgive me while my sides are splitting, its only the 23rd time I've heard that since 2004.....

[12-oclock-high]

Flymaybe

Cider - but its getting a lot more frequent on this forum and in the press as even the Telegraph mentioned it the other day
Tried flying out of MAN recently. Even the flight to their home base at EXE is getting the CANX treatment now and on MAN-GLA, BMI must be rubbing their hands with glee at the very frequent CANX by FLYMAYBE since they took over the route. Have you seen the post about the punctuality of BMI.

[nospeedrestriction9]

Lets be honest mate, Flybe's punctuality is appauling throughout the network with cancellations and delays daily.

They cannot be trusted to get you there on time if at all.

[ADC2604]

Punctuality 11/09 roughly between 17:30ish to 1900 ish

Nothing on the t.v so I scanned the Ceefax arrivals......MAN proved difficult as it hadn't been updated since 1530 then all of sudden it was live.

RED indicates an early arrival
BLUE indicates on time
GREEN within 30 minutes of STA
INDIGO within 1 hour of STA
PURPLE shows a current delay no ETA

MANCHESTER
1615 BE7275 GLASGOW EXPECTED 1615
1635 BE7227 EDINBURGH EXPECTED 1615
(JUMPS TO LIVE)
1755 BE240 JERSEY LANDED 1750
1810 BE7229 EDINBURGH LANDED 1750
1815 BE7023 BELFAST CITY LANDED 1810
1830 BE7266 FRANKFURT LANDED 1825

(WW PMI FLIGHT 3 HOUR 10 MINUTE DELAY - NO COMPLAINTS ON HERE)

GLASGOW
1745 BE7278 MANCHESTER LANDED 1734
1815 BE7092 BIRMINGHAM LANDED 1809

EDINBURGH
1800 BE7249 SOUTHAMPTON EXPECTED 1840
1805 BE7061 BIRMINGHAM LANDED 1757
1810 BE7228 MANCHESTER LANDED 1754

(EZY LTN FLIGHT CANX AND GSM AGP 5 HOUR DELAY)

DONCASTER DSA
1805 BE265 BELFAST CITY LANDED 1800

SOUTHAMPTON
1725 BE1726 HANOVER LANDED 1702
1730 BE174 LEEDS B/FORD LANDED 1754
1805 BE7370 MANCHESTER LANDED 1757
1810 BE1616 NICE LANDED 1812 (2 MINUTES LATE)
1815 BE887 GLASGOW EXPECTED 1821
1815 BE146 NEWCASTLE LANDED 1750

BIRMINGHAM
1755 BE191 ISLE OF MAN LANDED 1743
1805 BE7091 GLASGOW LANDED 1813
1810 BE1664 DUBROVNIK LANDED 1808

(WW GLA AND EDI FLIGHTS BOTH CANX)

LONDON GATWICK
1855 BE7326 INVERNESS EXPECTED 1845
1855 BE950 JERSEY EXPECTED 1850
1905 BE918 GUERNSEY EXPECTED 1856
1910 BE7337 ISLE OF MAN EXPECTED 1900

NORWICH
1830 BE1352 PARIS CDG LANDED 1754

EXETER
1755 BE1534 AMSTERDAM LANDED 1734
1835 BE376 MANCHESTER LANDED 1825
1850 BE312 JERSEY / GCI LANDED 1834

CARDIFF
1935 BE1436 PARIS CDG EXPECTED 1930

BELFAST CITY
1750 BE970 LONDON GATWICK LANDED 1753 (3 MIN LATE)
1805 BE130 GLASGOW LANDED 1750
1825 BE430 NEWCASTLE LANDED 1807
1825 BE7024 MANCHESTER LANDED 1810
1935 BE266 DONCASTER DSA EXPECTED 1925
1945 BE688 EDINBURGH EXPECTED 1945


This took an awful long time so won't be making a habit of it!

[birdscarer]

Its great you show loyalty to your company but you have to admit thier record is not great. I too used to work to thier punctuality and often i would end up working 2 or 3 hours extra until I could go home!
Thier customer service is rubbish too! They frequently would divert aircraft into EXT and not tell pax until mid flight-let alone us! You try getting coaches at midnight when the school run is only a few hours away! Everytime I would ask for someone from BE to come and greet these passengers, I was told there was no way!
FR are CHEAP and you expect that-BE aren't cheap and hide under the umbrella of 'Low Cost' to dodge thier reponsibilites to customers!

[birdscarer]

I (sadly) do not think they will go under. They are too ruthless (look at me paying a credit to them!) I have not worked in EXT for a while now but I am guessing you still do? In which case I would invite you to make yourself known to the handling agents there and tell them what you have said here-you'd be a braver man than I! For the money they are on, and the sh!t BE (and sometimes others) throw at them they do an amazing job!
I am also guessing you are in Maintrol or Engineering.....comfortable in that hangar isn't it? The real side of the airport is about 500 metres down the road and I would suggest you visit the frontline when an aircraft goes tech or a divert is inbound.
You probably realise I dislike BE. I have no experience of flying with them other than a pleasent trip on DH-3's to JER about 8 years ago. HOWEVER I have worked with scores of airlines and they would certainly be my 'top of the flops'! There are more people slagging them off here than being positive! What does that say?
Whoopee-doo if they have had a good record for 2 months. Come back next year and tell us the same and people may start giving them some credit.

[Haven't a clue]

IIRC FlyBe used to post punctuality statitistics on their web site. Gone now. Wonder why.

From an IoM perspective they're either on time, or they're not. Badly not. And because they're not quite often, they are getting a bad reputation. BACon merger cannot be blamed forever. New aircraft operated by locally based crews due soon.

For goodness sake please get it right from then on.

[GayFriendly]

Well said again ADC!! I have flown with Flybe on countless occasions from BHX to both domestic and European destinations and like any other airline have experienced delays, diversions and mediocre service - its part and parcel of the airline industry. Unfortunately there has been a decline in standards ex-BHX since the BACON takeover. There are often long queues at check-in (and why no self-service check-in?!!!!). You can check-in online but the times I have there has been no-one manning the Q Buster desk and I have to join the line. Some employees now have dollops of attitude and there is a certain amount of advantage being taken of pax on routes from BHX where they have a monopoly (over £350 next week to fly to Stuutgart, now that definately ain't low fares!!!). I have also found that info on the ground is non-existant, when delays do occur they are rarely announced, the onus is very much on the paying pax to find out whats going on But overall no worse than other airlines travelled on in the past 12 months!

[birdscarer]

Ahhh....When you mean 'pointless' views, you mean 'those not shared by myself'. Please tell me which remarks were pointless and untrue?
Does it matter that i am not a regular Flybe flyer? I have been in the industry long enough to know who are reliable who who aren't. You want to talk to people who dealt with them on a daily basis on the ground? I'm one of them! So please don't try to make me out to not know what i am talking about-from what I gather I have physically dealt with these aircraft alot more than you have. You're clearly not a pilot, your not cabin crew, your not maintrol, your not engineering. You don't seem to work airside....so i'm not sure at what capacity you think you have to make EVERYONE elses critical comments void!?

[liquid sunshine]

I would be interested to know if the previously mentioned stats takes accountof thr number of cancellations. A flight cannot be late if it has been cancelled. Anybody in the know will confirm that BEE have had more than their fare share of cancellations. In taking over Bacon BEE bit off more than they could chew. It hasn't got noticeably better recently. As for flt ops......don't get me started

[Flycatcher]

Worst aspect is that if we do arrive early we have been told to expect delays in disembarking pax and baggage removal, as the contracts are all based around ontime performance! Same presumably applies if late - even more delays. It is very frustrating to pull on stand 10 mins early and then wait 10 mins + to disembark pax and offload bags - yet it happens frequently (more and more frequently as post above in multi colours confirms!). So whilst performance is improving (I have seen that) getting there early makes it feel worse for our customers as they then wait an eternity to leave the aircraft and get their bags. Bring back BACON - at least they were flexible!

[akerosid]

Dash 8-Q400 landing gear collapses

SAS had a second landing gear collapse last night at Vilnius and has now decided to ground the entire fleet of the type.

Bombardier has requested that all Dash 8-Q400s with 10,000 or more cycles be grounded, pending checks.

Roughtly how many of BE's Dash 8s would be near this level?
G-JEDI was delivered in Oct 2001, so assuming a utilisation rate of 2,000h* per year (which is pretty conservative), it should have exceeded this, same with other earlier aircraft, such as 'JEDJ,K,L?

Presumably the CAA will be in touch with with Flybe and Bombardier about this over the next few days.

(Cycles would probably be in excess of hours, because of relatively short sector lengths, so this could potentially effect a considerably larger number of BE acft).

[Haven't a clue]

Flycatcher:

we have been told to expect delays in disembarking pax and baggage removal, as the contracts are all based around ontime performance! Same presumably applies if late - even more delays

That explains why the handling service at LGW goes seriously pear shaped when a delay creeps in.... Contracts based on on-time performance are fine provided the aircraft is on time. Surely whoever negotiated on behalf of FlyBe considered the possibility of delays? Indeed quickly turning round a delayed service gives the crew a chance to catch up on the schedule. Delaying it further just adds to cost.

Wonder how much FlyBe have paid to IoM Airport for extensions to accomodate late LGW flights? See this mornings 0650 is delayed, and has not yet left.....but that may be due to the SAS issue mentioned above.