People are saying that they have no aircraft, but what about these;

G-FBJA LPAR FLYBE LEASING CAYMAN 1 LTD as 2-RLBU

G-FBJB LPAR FLYBE LEASING CAYMAN 1 LTD as 2-RLBV

G-FBJC LPAR FLYBE LEASING CAYMAN 1 LTD as 2-RLBW

G-FBJD LPAR FLYBE LEASING CAYMAN 1 LTD as 2-RLBX

G-FBJE LPAR FLYBE LEASING CAYMAN 1 LTD as 2-RLBY

G-FBJF LPAR FLYBE LEASING CAYMAN 1 LTD as 2-RLBZ

If you step back from a purely aviation perspective, the business opportunity here is quite clear.

At a time when many of your competitors are struggling with all manner of debt to manage, you bring a business back to the market place unecumbered with debt, a clean start, and as a bonus various parts of the business already set up and ready to go. Hopefully at the beginning of an industry upswing. And possibly with sympathetic regulators, goverment support looking to promote industry growth.

A certain Scottish football team went down this route eight years ago, getting all manner of regulatory punitive punishments and relegation to the bottom league, but in the process divested itself of the bulk of its debt. Eight years on said club, back on top of the top league.

I'm not dumb; I get a football club and an airline are worlds apart; I'm just pointing out the opportunity here.

Early days, lots to do and obviously a bit of a punt...all of which applies to all businesses at some stage.

PS And no I don't support Glasgow NewCo :)

You don't support the team that top the table?

I landed in Saarbrucken a couple of weeks ago with a few dozens of Flybe Dash-8 parked there, some quite recent, well maintained and already painted in the right colors, so why bother with a new fleet ? They could reintroduced those one by one as traffic picks up later at minimal costs I would assume . Or am I missing something ?

They are E175s and it seems unlikely the Ejets would be part of any restart plan. They were part of the problem.

Richard Dangle

Eh, yeah, maybe not. The government have made it crystal clear about their intentions of supporting the Airline industry. I think this is all fantasy talk at the moment. Whoever starts this off is going to have to have pockets deeper than the Grand Canyon!

Flybe isn't going to start flying tomorrow and the future situation is unknown - see how it unfolds. I think its fair to say these lot have some experience in running an airline, we haven't seen the books, done any due diligence or spent any of our own cash... they have and I bet they did it knowing it would get a good return.
Hopefully that goal of a good return will be aligned with Flybe returning to the skies......

I do feel sorry for the airlines flying at the moment losing cash if Flybe comes back and competes hard but its dog eat dog.
There weren't many backing Flybys call for a bail out at the start of the year and they were quick to cherry pick the best routes rather the essential connectivity marginal routes.
However at these times I still think working with Logan Air to supply the UK with essential Regional Connectivity would be better than going after them and better in the eyes of the Politicians/Media.

New Company NO DEBT
 

Nothing to loose here if you wish to get into the travel business 'that suits you'.
No need to go back to old routes that bleed money, No need to spend most of your time trying to 'plug holes', No need to concern yourself with dealing with 'negative' issues. People will want to travel again, and everyone wants to attract them to their 'shop'. The ability to focus most of your attention on giving passengers what they are looking for is a very big plus. Airports will be hungry to offer facilities at economical rates, and destinations keen to do the same. A company that can keep itself lean and mean but does what it needs to do to get cashflow will attract customers very quickly. The internal market is too expensive and complicated to bother with to start with ,but there is still a need for leisure travel that suits the Dash fleet, and now a surplus of Jets to add to when/if required. Business is Business, and flying needs to be treated as such, not making it more complicated than required.

This reminds me of the old saw about how to make a small fortune in aviation: start with a large one.

There are certain unavoidable expenses in running an airline, no matter how much you try and pare down the structure. Leasing, landing and enroute charges, engineering, fuel and crew are a few of the major ones. A reservation and tracking system plus advertising are others. Flybe didn’t ever strike me as a bloated company resting on their laurels - they were trading in a very competitive space on narrow (negative) margins and the coup-de-grace was Covid. How a startup (or rebadging) entering that same arena in possibly the worst time for commercial aviation in living memory is going to make money is the question that doesn’t appear to have a sensible answer - hope and goodwill don’t count, unfortunately.

Good accurate post Airsouthwest. Before the airline went bust i tried to explain the complexities of the relationships of the three shareholders in Virgin Connect
My explanations always fell upon deaf years

Why? Plenty of ex Flybe Q400s looking for homes, and very cheaply at that bearing in mind that 54 redundant aircraft have created a glut on the market

[QUOTE=airsouthwest;10908079]Flybe is a good brand, it's not a failed brand.

You can't be serious. Flybe went out of business leaving hundreds of people stranded and having to make their own way home. Those let down like that will not have happy memories but will remember Flybe not as a good but a failed brand.

Whether or not the other airlines which have responded to Flybe's collapse by taking on routes are "good" or not, they have invested to replenish the market. They do not deserve a reincarnated Flybe to haunt them. I have no axe to grind and wish all former employees of the airline well, but this is hardly an opportune time to start an airline. Other posts have been realistic and sounded a note of caution. Let's not get carried away into flights of fantasy.

Putting things in capitals doesn't make it fact. Stobart pulled the plug on Flybe funding, Not Virgin, Not Cyprus. Cyprus tried to get a new AOC to transfer Flybe over too but the situation changed faster than expected. Aviation can rebuild with the rest of the economy, just like it did in 2008.[/QUOTE]

Flybe was heading in the right direction of stopping losing money but unfortunately Stobart was have their own money problems and could not afford to pump any more money in to Connect Airways plus not getting the £100m loan from the government. Virgin and Cyrus had no choice but to put flybe in to adminstration. As well as Connect Airways.

While now flybe has be bought back from administration, Cityjet are in the process in buying Stobart Air, unfortunately this is taking longer that expected as EIR went out to tender.

There may be more behind this with CityJet Getting E190's from their parent company Falko.

There's a reason only 25% of the former BEE network has been filled... it's about that proportion which made profit that was gobbled up by the other 75%, Academy, and astronomical leasing costs.

54, plus many more from Air Baltic, German Airways, Austrian. Very cheap deals to be had.

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.

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!

[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.

Did Flybe own slots at LHR? If so which ones did they own?