Flybe-9
Join Date: Mar 2002
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I stopped reading at this point. Many commendable things about Flybe (its people, for one) but it was not a good brand even before it collapsed. It was weeks away from a major rebrand as a last-ditch effort to stay alive. Even if these missing routes were remotely viable in the forseeable future, there must be half a dozen dead airline brands (and quite a few living ones) that stand a better chance of survival.
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: ??-ask crewing
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Man, what are those dashes going to be like after a year+ of not being flown?! Wasn't it the TriStar that had good serviceability, just so long as you didn't shut it down!
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Dark side of the Moon
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[QUOTE=Gurnard;10908133]
Seems like you might.
..and it's the perfect time to "plan" to start an airline. Clean slate, no debt, competitors struggling, domestic slots available everywhere as capacity reduced, potential to negotiate very favourable rates for handling, fuel, aircraft leasing, MRO support, willing, ready and trained crews. It'll take many many months to get all the pieces in place.
When the conditions to actually launch and this horrible pandemic are ending and behind us, Flybe Mk2 launches smaller, more focussed, with profitable routes at profitable bases... legacy constraints no longer holding it back.
..and it's the perfect time to "plan" to start an airline. Clean slate, no debt, competitors struggling, domestic slots available everywhere as capacity reduced, potential to negotiate very favourable rates for handling, fuel, aircraft leasing, MRO support, willing, ready and trained crews. It'll take many many months to get all the pieces in place.
When the conditions to actually launch and this horrible pandemic are ending and behind us, Flybe Mk2 launches smaller, more focussed, with profitable routes at profitable bases... legacy constraints no longer holding it back.
[QUOTE=RogueOne;10908273]
Seems like you might.
..and it's the perfect time to "plan" to start an airline. Clean slate, no debt, competitors struggling, domestic slots available everywhere as capacity reduced, potential to negotiate very favourable rates for handling, fuel, aircraft leasing, MRO support, willing, ready and trained crews. It'll take many many months to get all the pieces in place.
When the conditions to actually launch and this horrible pandemic are ending and behind us, Flybe Mk2 launches smaller, more focussed, with profitable routes at profitable bases... legacy constraints no longer holding it back.
I have some magic beans you might be interested in.
No new carrier starts off profitable from day one. Going in against Loganair on say MAN-xyz, the incumbent will have no choice but to fight tooth and nail for survival, hence no easy path to profitability. The notion that there's a large enough niche for a new flybe flying a large fleet of clapped out DHDs is just nonsense. Or maybe they'll order a new fleet of ATR72s with a side order of shiney A220s? They wil need to be very well capitalised to survive a couple of years of massive losses as a newbie flying on the brand of a famously bankrupt and frankly unloved carrier. The major problem of being unable to expand into the easyJet / Ryanair space and being up against stronger local brands like Loganair, Blue Islands and Aurigny remains. Any zombie Flybe had no USP to market.
Seems like you might.
..and it's the perfect time to "plan" to start an airline. Clean slate, no debt, competitors struggling, domestic slots available everywhere as capacity reduced, potential to negotiate very favourable rates for handling, fuel, aircraft leasing, MRO support, willing, ready and trained crews. It'll take many many months to get all the pieces in place.
When the conditions to actually launch and this horrible pandemic are ending and behind us, Flybe Mk2 launches smaller, more focussed, with profitable routes at profitable bases... legacy constraints no longer holding it back.
No new carrier starts off profitable from day one. Going in against Loganair on say MAN-xyz, the incumbent will have no choice but to fight tooth and nail for survival, hence no easy path to profitability. The notion that there's a large enough niche for a new flybe flying a large fleet of clapped out DHDs is just nonsense. Or maybe they'll order a new fleet of ATR72s with a side order of shiney A220s? They wil need to be very well capitalised to survive a couple of years of massive losses as a newbie flying on the brand of a famously bankrupt and frankly unloved carrier. The major problem of being unable to expand into the easyJet / Ryanair space and being up against stronger local brands like Loganair, Blue Islands and Aurigny remains. Any zombie Flybe had no USP to market.
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Doncaster
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Flybe Mk II will have massive advantages.
They will not have just dragged themselves through the worst crisis in aviation history with all the massive losses
They will have massive amounts of pilots and crew keen to get back in the air
They will have airports desperate to see some flights moving and be able to plan their routes with historic but accurate route data
There will be no shortage of aircraft and maintenance facilities to be had at favourable rates
They can choose when to launch, ie when a comeback looks sustainable
I hope to see them in the sky in 18 months or so.
They will not have just dragged themselves through the worst crisis in aviation history with all the massive losses
They will have massive amounts of pilots and crew keen to get back in the air
They will have airports desperate to see some flights moving and be able to plan their routes with historic but accurate route data
There will be no shortage of aircraft and maintenance facilities to be had at favourable rates
They can choose when to launch, ie when a comeback looks sustainable
I hope to see them in the sky in 18 months or so.
Join Date: Nov 2016
Location: This side of Heaven
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[QUOTE=Skipness One Foxtrot;10908373]
Just for the record #4378 has become distorted. I have been credited with someone else's post. 
Skipness, I'm in agreement with you; it's someone else who isn't! 
I have some magic beans you might be interested in.
No new carrier starts off profitable from day one. Going in against Loganair on say MAN-xyz, the incumbent will have no choice but to fight tooth and nail for survival, hence no easy path to profitability. The notion that there's a large enough niche for a new flybe flying a large fleet of clapped out DHDs is just nonsense. Or maybe they'll order a new fleet of ATR72s with a side order of shiney A220s? They wil need to be very well capitalised to survive a couple of years of massive losses as a newbie flying on the brand of a famously bankrupt and frankly unloved carrier. The major problem of being unable to expand into the easyJet / Ryanair space and being up against stronger local brands like Loganair, Blue Islands and Aurigny remains. Any zombie Flybe had no USP to market.
No new carrier starts off profitable from day one. Going in against Loganair on say MAN-xyz, the incumbent will have no choice but to fight tooth and nail for survival, hence no easy path to profitability. The notion that there's a large enough niche for a new flybe flying a large fleet of clapped out DHDs is just nonsense. Or maybe they'll order a new fleet of ATR72s with a side order of shiney A220s? They wil need to be very well capitalised to survive a couple of years of massive losses as a newbie flying on the brand of a famously bankrupt and frankly unloved carrier. The major problem of being unable to expand into the easyJet / Ryanair space and being up against stronger local brands like Loganair, Blue Islands and Aurigny remains. Any zombie Flybe had no USP to market.
Skipness, I'm in agreement with you; it's someone else who isn't!
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Dorset
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Flybe Mk II will have massive advantages.
They will not have just dragged themselves through the worst crisis in aviation history with all the massive losses
They will have massive amounts of pilots and crew keen to get back in the air
They will have airports desperate to see some flights moving and be able to plan their routes with historic but accurate route data
There will be no shortage of aircraft and maintenance facilities to be had at favourable rates
They can choose when to launch, ie when a comeback looks sustainable
I hope to see them in the sky in 18 months or so.
They will not have just dragged themselves through the worst crisis in aviation history with all the massive losses
They will have massive amounts of pilots and crew keen to get back in the air
They will have airports desperate to see some flights moving and be able to plan their routes with historic but accurate route data
There will be no shortage of aircraft and maintenance facilities to be had at favourable rates
They can choose when to launch, ie when a comeback looks sustainable
I hope to see them in the sky in 18 months or so.
They have a brand which was so toxic after the hand baggage fiasco that they were having to plan a full re-brand before they went bust.
The market is shot to pieces with several former cash-cows like BHX-EDI suffering badly from passengers driving and not flying.
Of the routes that might still work, many have Loganair, Blue Islands, Eastern or easyJet parked on them.
Flybe ran out of cash in January 2020, long before Coronavirus was an everyday word in our language, then staggered on until March.
They lost an incredible £200m in 2019.
It was a basketcase, remains a basketcase, and will be a bottomless money-pit for the investors behind it. If it gets airborne after due CAA scrutiny, it will be a triumph of vanity over reality.
Can anyone actually think of a bankrupt airline relaunch which has gone well? I'm struggling to come up with one.
I'm beginning to wonder if the quoted Lucien Farrell of Cyrus and the dreamer Jason Unsworth of Atmosphere International are somehow related.
Join Date: Dec 1999
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You can have all the cheap aircraft you want but you still have to fuel and maintain them. Staff, navigation and ground expenses are still there as are a degree of overhead. Even more fundamentally, most of the (I assume) profitable routes have already been backfilled by competitors. Throw in continued Covid-related tomfoolery and you have a recipe for unmitigated disaster. This outfit has not got a cat in hells chance of making it in my opinion.
Join Date: Oct 2020
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They weren't a cheap ticket and they still were losing money. This time around they'd be up against the LCC's willing to fly domestics against them because they have aircraft and crew sat around doing little. There are relatively few airports where you can't operate a lightly loaded 737/320 and the ones that are too small are already served by the likes of Logan and Stobart. The likes of easy already operate profitably on routes like LGW-JER BRS-IOM BFS-GLA. Absolutely nothing stopping them operating domestics out of CWL EXT BOH LBA NCL MAN BHX SOU NQY NWI. As long as they break even they may as well use their spare capacity to feed into their larger hubs like LGW LTN BRS MAN to facilitate onward to travel to the huge orange European network. Ditto Ryanair via STN DUB.
Outside of our aviation bubble is Flybe that strong a brand? It was Jersey European until well into this century. Most news headlines about FlyBe involve either falling share prices, doubts about its future and then its collapse. It was always a confused brand, was I supposed to be low cost? U.K. Regional businessman's commute? Family holiday to Malaga? As a brand it seemed to have a lot less pedigree and affection than Monarch and I don't see anybody putting much of a value on that brand.
at the end of the day this is a vulture fund. Not a long term investor looking to build a viable airline business. Don't get your hopes up.
Outside of our aviation bubble is Flybe that strong a brand? It was Jersey European until well into this century. Most news headlines about FlyBe involve either falling share prices, doubts about its future and then its collapse. It was always a confused brand, was I supposed to be low cost? U.K. Regional businessman's commute? Family holiday to Malaga? As a brand it seemed to have a lot less pedigree and affection than Monarch and I don't see anybody putting much of a value on that brand.
at the end of the day this is a vulture fund. Not a long term investor looking to build a viable airline business. Don't get your hopes up.
Join Date: Nov 2016
Location: This side of Heaven
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What could possibly go wrong next time round?
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Essex
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