Flybe-V1
I'm beginning to wonder if, with the original Cyrus plan looking to be in trouble, Flybe is now at risk of being the UK equivalent of India's Jet Airways.
Former employees are likely to be finding other jobs, possibly leaving aviation altogether. I'm guessing it will take time before there is a detailed plan B - and the longer it takes before flying is expected to resume, the greater a grip competitors will have over Flybe's former markets
Former employees are likely to be finding other jobs, possibly leaving aviation altogether. I'm guessing it will take time before there is a detailed plan B - and the longer it takes before flying is expected to resume, the greater a grip competitors will have over Flybe's former markets
Albert,
I agree, TUPE is very complex and under certain scenarios it may stick but in this case I think it will be unlikely. The staff didn't qualify for furlough payments and yet in theory, they fell within the qualifying period. EY claimed it would be outside their remit and they could be breaking the law if they entertained it. If TUPE could be made to stick then that could open up a whole pension legal minefield with two more regulators sticking their noses in. I think all parties will be doing their best to tip toe around that scenario. I agree, it is a long shot for the un-secured creditors to recover much more but the slot thing is very complex and I am not sure whether a Charge will entirely capture something as legally vague as a slot. Any new start will need a big injection of cash and that person is going to understandably ensure that it is all arms length from any historical claims.
I would be delighted if out of this mess Flybe's former competitors (Loganair etc) picked up much of the generally domestic work but it would be somewhat frustrating if the likes of say KLM managed to gorge themselves on Flybe's 16 or so slots into AMS and likewise for AF in CDG. It would be a shame if Mk 2 truly intended to take those routes back on and yet the CAA just put legalistic barriers in the way and allowed companies enjoying huge state bailouts moved in instead.
Similarly for the LHR slots. The reason they were labelled remedy was presumably as a remedy against BA's stranglehold on LHR. Surely the point is that it is healthy if someone manages to wrestle them out of BA's paws and preferably into the hands of a UK business so that they can provide that competition. Virgin trid once with Little Red and then tried again with Connect but sadly that was blow out of the water by Covid. The way the CAA seem to deal with things is it is more likely they will fall into a Maltese Reg operator with HQ in the Cayman Islands using mainly wet leased aircraft from China with Australian contract crews. OK, very cynical but this is aviation and there are huge number of unemployed UK aviation workers who need a little help right now.
I agree, TUPE is very complex and under certain scenarios it may stick but in this case I think it will be unlikely. The staff didn't qualify for furlough payments and yet in theory, they fell within the qualifying period. EY claimed it would be outside their remit and they could be breaking the law if they entertained it. If TUPE could be made to stick then that could open up a whole pension legal minefield with two more regulators sticking their noses in. I think all parties will be doing their best to tip toe around that scenario. I agree, it is a long shot for the un-secured creditors to recover much more but the slot thing is very complex and I am not sure whether a Charge will entirely capture something as legally vague as a slot. Any new start will need a big injection of cash and that person is going to understandably ensure that it is all arms length from any historical claims.
I would be delighted if out of this mess Flybe's former competitors (Loganair etc) picked up much of the generally domestic work but it would be somewhat frustrating if the likes of say KLM managed to gorge themselves on Flybe's 16 or so slots into AMS and likewise for AF in CDG. It would be a shame if Mk 2 truly intended to take those routes back on and yet the CAA just put legalistic barriers in the way and allowed companies enjoying huge state bailouts moved in instead.
Similarly for the LHR slots. The reason they were labelled remedy was presumably as a remedy against BA's stranglehold on LHR. Surely the point is that it is healthy if someone manages to wrestle them out of BA's paws and preferably into the hands of a UK business so that they can provide that competition. Virgin trid once with Little Red and then tried again with Connect but sadly that was blow out of the water by Covid. The way the CAA seem to deal with things is it is more likely they will fall into a Maltese Reg operator with HQ in the Cayman Islands using mainly wet leased aircraft from China with Australian contract crews. OK, very cynical but this is aviation and there are huge number of unemployed UK aviation workers who need a little help right now.
Ironically, they seemed to rely entirely on retained EU law.
and yet the CAA just put legalistic barriers in the way
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Well, I doubt they will be for much longer as even a person who’s seriously mentally, visually and aurally challenged, will realise that this whole exercise has been one of “smoke and mirrors” to try and grab any slots at LHR, if they ever really were Flybe’s. That argument will drone on for weeks, but what is definite is that any reemergence of Flybe has got a lot of former employees fired up to the extent that lots have spent a small fortune (in the current Covid/unemployment climate) renewing ratings in a vain hope of gaining employment. To have it (pretty much) confirmed that this was just a cynical exercise in making a shed load of cash to cover their past losses and then heading off into the sunset, is quite honestly totally in line with the way these “venture capitalists “ work. Yet again, the hardworking but naive employees get shafted and the ones controlling the purse strings walk away unscathed. I spent 15 years with Flybe and met some of the nicest, unassuming people you could hope to meet that just wanted to live and work in “the regions” and frequently went way beyond to make things work. Somebody, someday, will start an outfit that will serve the regions again which the current wannabes like Logansir and Eastern never will. I just hope that when they do, they start with a clean sheet and don’t involve any of the previous managers or investors.
If that's the cases there must surely have been cheaper ways of attempting to achieve the goal than acquiring a Dash 8? Perhaps not.
You could be right Buster but as you say, Loganair and Eastern are not going to be filling all the gaps and many of those people who had the cash were perhaps renewing their ratings just to keep their licences going as it was cheaper to do it on a sim on a familiar rating than to use a twin. In some cases, the Job Centre paid. I think most people were aware of the possibility of what might happen regarding venture capitalists but I think it will be worth waiting to see what EY have to say in their next report due early May. In the meantime, licences have to be kept refreshed and ticking over.
They (EY) appear to have been holding onto a lot of staff to keep a credible licence holding operation going. Were these people transferred across into Thyme when they supposedly took on the business or are they still employed by Flybe (EY) and were just working in parallel with Thyme? Did thyme ever complete the deal to buy or were there strings attached to ensure that it only completed when the slots had been secured (the whole portfolio not just LHR)? What is going to happen to these retained staff now? What will happen to Thyme with its one remaining director? What will happen to Connect Airways? The CA board seems to still exist and strangely it is still owned by Virgin and Stobart (with EY in control) and yet Virgin appears to still owe Flybe Ł10m. Still lots of unanswered questions but there must be quite a few retained staff who are in the know and are either waiting to move onto develop plan f,g,h...k, or alternatively, are a bit p***ed off as they have been taken for a ride are about to get the boot. Someone must know what's going on at the coalface.
They (EY) appear to have been holding onto a lot of staff to keep a credible licence holding operation going. Were these people transferred across into Thyme when they supposedly took on the business or are they still employed by Flybe (EY) and were just working in parallel with Thyme? Did thyme ever complete the deal to buy or were there strings attached to ensure that it only completed when the slots had been secured (the whole portfolio not just LHR)? What is going to happen to these retained staff now? What will happen to Thyme with its one remaining director? What will happen to Connect Airways? The CA board seems to still exist and strangely it is still owned by Virgin and Stobart (with EY in control) and yet Virgin appears to still owe Flybe Ł10m. Still lots of unanswered questions but there must be quite a few retained staff who are in the know and are either waiting to move onto develop plan f,g,h...k, or alternatively, are a bit p***ed off as they have been taken for a ride are about to get the boot. Someone must know what's going on at the coalface.
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BE in my eyes is dead and buried, was from March last year and the sooner people realise this the better. It was a failing company then and nothing I have read suggests it’s about to resurrect itself in to some type of profitable new regional airline!
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Will Flybe restart.... No its dead, very dead. Its successor isn't dead and who knows whats to come..... We'll all find out in the next few weeks I expect.
Interesting that Logan Air wanted their say at the CAA meeting, obviously more bothered about a restart than they make out.
Interesting that Logan Air wanted their say at the CAA meeting, obviously more bothered about a restart than they make out.
After flybe and Loganair parted company with their franchise agreement, flybe went head to head in core Scottish markets in a suicide mission to harm their former partner. It threw Loganair into a period of uncertaintly and losses as they fought to survive, until flybe gave up having lost a whole load of money in a frankly vindictive enterprise. I suspect Loganair (trading since 1962) are very concerned that having survived all of that and now being battered by COVID, the thought of a debt free and eager to challenge flybe_2 dropping back into markets Loganair need to repair their balance sheet would be a worry. Flybe not having to worry about any debts or money owed as they'd already walked away scot free. It's not a good look really.
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SWBKCB
Didn’t Loganair and their parent (Airline Investment Limited) also not wipe out a load of debts by allowing bmi Regional (who they also owned) to go bust (along with its debts) and cherry pick the best bits/routes to Loganair ? I don’t profess to know the exact detail. So not sure they can claim to be holier than thou in such matters - not sure what harm this did or didn’t do to BEE in the process in terms of the competitive environment.
Didn’t Loganair and their parent (Airline Investment Limited) also not wipe out a load of debts by allowing bmi Regional (who they also owned) to go bust (along with its debts) and cherry pick the best bits/routes to Loganair ? I don’t profess to know the exact detail. So not sure they can claim to be holier than thou in such matters - not sure what harm this did or didn’t do to BEE in the process in terms of the competitive environment.
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I'd be surprised if Flybe even noticed when bmi Regional went out of business. Except for those who had the misfortune to work there at the time of its collapse, I'm sure the same could be said of most others.
If this is a "slot play" as rumoured, the nub of the issue is surely that this has only gone on because of the Coronavirus airport slot waivers from the 80/20 rules. If it wasn't for that, the slots would be long gone by now. I don't know what the "New Flybe" has planned but it does seem as though the Coronavirus rules might be used and abused to revive an airline which was in trouble long before we'd ever heard that dreaded C word? If that's so, I can see why others might be quite exercised about it.
Are the submissions to the CAA hearing panel in the public domain anywhere, or is there any (legal) way of obtaining them?
If this is a "slot play" as rumoured, the nub of the issue is surely that this has only gone on because of the Coronavirus airport slot waivers from the 80/20 rules. If it wasn't for that, the slots would be long gone by now. I don't know what the "New Flybe" has planned but it does seem as though the Coronavirus rules might be used and abused to revive an airline which was in trouble long before we'd ever heard that dreaded C word? If that's so, I can see why others might be quite exercised about it.
Are the submissions to the CAA hearing panel in the public domain anywhere, or is there any (legal) way of obtaining them?
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Yep. And then lost a TUPE claim by the pilots they took on. Not sure that precedent would be helpful for Flybe MKII, should it ever happen.
Yep. And then lost a TUPE claim by the pilots they took on. Not sure that precedent would be helpful for Flybe MKII, should it ever happen.
Last edited by cavokblues; 14th Mar 2021 at 21:39.
I agree ASW, it does seem odd that the CAA are being extraordinarily pernickety with TO considering how easy going they are in approving so many other new ragtag multi-jurisdiction multi ownership layered so called “UK” operators to nail a brass plate on a broom cupboard door. I wonder why?
Is allowing a company to buy the licences of a bankrupt airline solely to sell off slots that would otherwise go into a pool compatible with what an intelligent observer would regard as an orderly competitive market ? Would the CAA risk a legal challenge from other airlines if a pseudo-Flybe was allowed to revive that operated no passenger flights but did sell LHR slots before closing again ?
I don't know the answers but it must be at least on the minds of CAA and/or DfT lawyers
I don't know the answers but it must be at least on the minds of CAA and/or DfT lawyers