Timetable's back.

Thanks for your initiative.

The ATR72 600 is 10 tonnes lighter than the Dash 8 400 and obviously burns less fuel as a result. Although it is slower isn't this aircraft a better fit for Flybe in the long-term? They will surely need to start looking at replacing the Dash 8 400 in the future as the average age of the fleet is creeping up and will result in very expensive maintenance and engineering costs.

I was lead to believe the weight difference is closer to 4 - 5 tonne?

Flybe have recently evaluated their current and future fleet needs. For the next 3-5 years at least, the Q400s will remain the backbone of the fleet alongside the E175s. The ATR will of course have been part of the recent evaluation. However, for now, the Q400's "close to jet like speed", the efficiency within that field and its slightly higher seating capacity best suits the operation and avoids unnecessary costs right now that a new type would bring.

For much of the route network i do actually see the Q400 as the best frame for Flybe, especially when needing to be flexible with fitting in with the E-Jet schedules from time to time as well as operating on some longer sector routes. With a potential to be able to further increase the seating capacity on the Q400 aircraft, they could further improve their efficiency in this way alone and improve available seats on the network without too much significant cost.

That's not to say i dislike the ATR of course. But right now i fully understand the reasoning behind Flybes future fleet strategy evaluations and see it as the best fit for their ops for the foreseeable.

I think, but I am prepared to be shot down in flames if I am wrong, that Flybe Q400s have drop down pax oxygen which gives them a max ceiling of 27,000 ft which in turn allows them to use upper airspace which would be very helpful on some of their routes. The ATR is limited to 25,000 ft so cannot use upper airspace.

Willy, that's not correct. The Q400 is also capped at FL250 for the reason you state.
​​​​​Also upper airspace starts at FL245 so they do actually fly in upper airspace, albeit only in one direction.

Many's the time in the past, up to five years ago, Q400s requested F250 eastbound through Maastricht airspace only to descend a few minutes later, unable to maintain.

In the long run if they do replace the Q400 would they actually be better off to replace them with the E175 rather than the ATR?

zed3 I've spent 5,000 hrs in the Q400 at FL250 and have never had to descend due to not being able to maintain.

Depends what the price difference is. The issue with the E170's was never the operating cost but the price that the frames were bought for.

My son was due to fly late this afternoon Bhx - Bhd. Flight cancelled due to no/not enough crew he was told. Not due to weather. They are being bussed to Man for a flight later this evening.

Wonderful.

There will crew/aircraft out of position all over the place in the UK tonight so while the official reason might be no crew it could well be because they are sitting on the tarmac out of position somewhere. Most airports north of central England are reporting diverts/cancellations today.

TartinTon

You may well be correct. That is not what he was told, but that could be poor communication, hardly surprising with airlines/handling companies. If your suspicion is right, it would have been better to tell them that, it would have been more understandable. However, airlines, still, need to treat people like fools.

The thing is, Flybe did their best to get the pax to their destination, even if it did mean a journey by road to an alternate departure airport first. I'm sure they would have rather operated the scheduled flight as planned.

Flybe at SOU.

My personal opinion is that when they used BOH to scare SOU into giving them a deal it is now coming back to haunt them.

easyJet was the first clue. SOU mustve been preparing that one as a contingency if Flybe really did pull out of SOU or transfer some services to BOH.

Now SOU seems to have gone all out to try and get the attention of the LCC's with a runway extension planned along with stands for multiple A320/738 sized jets.

If I was Flybe right now I'd be looking to lock down BIG expansion at SOU to prevent this from happening or they will most likely see increased competition from what is quite a niche market.

Assuming a LCC wants to expand at SOU in the first place. Also where would Flybe get the aircraft from?

Don't Flybe have an 'excess' capacity problem right now? They are desperately trying to offload jets and consolidate for some bizarre reason. I know of no company in the world that would make money from projecting ever declining market share.

Given the extreme winds yesterday flybe operations remained robust in difficult conditions. Some staff were unable to get into work on time yesterday following falling trees and blocked roads, this resulted in regrettably a few cancellations with the first wave of afternoon flights. Staff were used from standby and worked day off to minimise disruption. Lots of sick bags used yesterday shows the conditions were less than comfortable. How about a job well done guys! instead of all this negativity towards flybe and the hard working airline crews giving their best day after day. Have a nice day!

They are trimming their fleet down to about 70 aircraft so they aren't going to be able to do big expansions anywhere without sacrificing elsewhere.

"Given the extreme winds yesterday flybe operations remained robust in difficult conditions. Some staff were unable to get into work on time yesterday following falling trees and blocked roads, this resulted in regrettably a few cancellations with the first wave of afternoon flights. Staff were used from standby and worked day off to minimise disruption. Lots of sick bags used yesterday shows the conditions were less than comfortable. How about a job well done guys! instead of all this negativity towards flybe and the hard working airline crews giving their best day after day. Have a nice day!"

You may well be very right in what you say. What your input does do is re-enforce my argument that airlines bring a lot of negativity upon themselves by not giving pax straight forward honest, open explanations of what the problem is. If you are just told, we haven't enough crew, what are you supposed to think? If, on the other hand, someone takes a few extra seconds to explain the background to the problem, throws a very different light on it, doesn't it?

That's true but they have also said that any expansion would be market-led expansion instead of the capacity-led expansion introduced under French/Hammad.

Capacity-led expansion is the reason for easyJet & Ryanair's success. They are forcing change. They are shaping the market. Demand/market-led expansion is a lazy way of saying that our company will evolve depending on the customer behaviour - which is very fickle and also very unpredictable. This is absolutely the opposite of what a low-cost business should be doing. I think an ownership change could be good for Flybe where they get the funding to allow them to get back into expansion mode.

Meanwhile...

Flybe seem to be spending a huge amount of time and effort pushing the female FlyShe campaign. There is no brand differentiation here. It is a hygiene factor like safety. If the best thing going for Flybe is to push the fact they have a female CEO then as a shareholder I am concerned about their future. Gender should have no relevance here. It should be about skill. easyJet never once mentioned that they had a female CEO (they didn't need to!) and never created a whole campaign around it. Flybe seem to be confused about how a true CSR campaign should be executed.

I fear that capacity led expansion is exactly what got Flybe into a position of peril. They signed up to an order for up to 140 Embraer 175's, most likely in the expectation that they would sign capacity agreements with Europe's major legacy carriers much as you find in the US. The problem is that Europe wasn't really ready for this type of consolidation and Flybe couldn't get enough traction from the legacy airlines to push them into it. Union issues and state ownership prevented such moves. Only BA have been willing to hand over their regional subsidiary, but in doing so left the market entirely when they sold BAConnect.

Will Flybe expand? Sure, in time I think they will but rather than having an order book that they're obliged to take, they now have a position of deciding whether to extend or terminate leases instead depending on demand. Sure they'll need to order more aircraft to expand in future but the current position is all about creating a stable platform to support the growth and this was something that Flybe simply didn't have. There wasn't enough underpinning the plans but slowly, things seem to be turning a corner.

To be honest I think it's being over thought somewhat. All the CEO is doing (if you read the article) is looking into the future and wondering where the industry's pilots are coming from going forward and is also using the fact that females make up such a small percentage of flightdeck worldwide so why not try and tap into that market and try and encourage more females to take up flight training. I think it's a good thing. Also all her energy clearly isn't taken up with this and the eye isn't off the ball regarding profitability, those that think so need a rethink.
As for the E175, well what can Flybe do? It was Mr French who thought it was a great idea, Saad H & COW have just inherited them and there's no way out of the deal. The E195 was the worst deal in aircraft buying/leasing history and the E175 wasn't far behind it, but Flybe are stuck with them, end of story. Saad offloaded 24 E175 orders for dash 8s with Republic Airlines, that was the only way out of the ones on order but it left 4 to obtain and those 4 have to arrive, there simply is nowhere to go with them. The reason Flybe had to expand so quickly was because they had to receive the Q400s in the Republic deal, which, let's face it if it didn't happen Flybe probably wouldn't be here today. These Q400s couldn't sit on the ground so routes had to be found to fly them and this is why Flybe are retracting as a business because in an already highly saturated European market the only viable routes were thin margin routes or an increase in frequency on current good performing routes. This still leaves Flybe with more aircraft than they want and the hand back and reduction in fleet is a slow process but at least it saved it's backside. The restructuring clearly needs to be done before the cash runs out and on that note the financial figures are starting to bear fruit which hopefully we'll see in the next set of results due out soon.

Albert Hall, you state the obvious and yes, maybe there have been worse deals worldwide, it's a flippant comment I've heard from the powers that be to emphasise how bad it was, try not to hang your hat on every single comment.

It's usually very end of October into early November.

Summer 2019
 

Understand 2019 the rest of the timetable will be out in the next week or two. I don't think many new routes just extra flights or exe to Paris up to 13w. Plus amsterdam. edincould get extra flights if they keep them happy!?

Summer 2019
 

I highly doubt any new routes at all in 2019. An interview with Flybe management (sorry can't remember the individuals name) in this months Airliner World magazine states that BE will in fact be dropping a number of routes compared to summer 2018. The same interview also states that domestic flying will remain the core business supported by a few international routes.

BE still very much in right sizing mode whilst it tries to restructure and focus on where it sits in the UK aviation industry.

Guess we'll find out this week or next!

I am looking forward. While I expect the total number of routes to drop, there will be possibly a small number of new routes. For example in Cardiff and if they base a third aircraft on the Isle of Man.

executive changes
 

In July it had been announced that Sir Timothy (Timo) Anderson will replace Luke Farajallah as the COO on 15 October. Luke to stay with Flybe until the end of October. He is still listed on the flybe management team but his linked in account says that he is Chairman at TARCG.

What changed on the relevant flybe website is that the CIO Peter Hauptvogel disappeared. And a new face Rob Pendle is now listed who is not a replacement for the CIO but CTO. Both changes have not been announced.

The only announcement today that I found is that Glenn Torpy has been appointed as external chair of Flybe's safety and security committee.

I am a bit puzzled....

Fingers crossed they've got more planned for Cardiff !