which ones do you predict?

I predict:

Cardiff
Doncaster
Dusseldorf
Glasgow

A small(ish) trimmed has happened in Manchester to Southampton, for this winter, with flights down from 7 to 5 per day.

Also peak winter 2018 week movements for Flybe at Manchester are down by 88.

I know from current insiders that the DUS base is a crewing nightmare. They don't have enough crew to man it without positioning in multiple crew from BHX on a daily basis to operate DUS baaed rotations. It must be costing them thousands.

BHX crew are also regularly being taxied to/from Cardiff for 3 or 4 days tours as they are short there too. In fact it is rare for cabin crew at any base to get a monthly roster that doesn't include positioning (flight, taxi or hire car) somewhere and staying in a hotel for 2 or 3 nights at (great) company expense.

Operationally they need a more robust and realistic schedule in place with more slack to allow catch up when delays happen. Crewing is reactive not proactive (in fact as everyone is at BE) and the company as a whole seems to only look as far forward as the next 24 hours.

They need to cut bases and trim the fat.

As a former insider I can tell you that everyone at BE is passionate about doing a good job and the right thing and truly wants to airline to succeed and grow. Everyone however is let down by poor strategic decisions made by a management that is very distant from the flying operation and a management culture that does not encourage creativity, personal opinion or 'thinking outside the purple box'. Management do not have a clear strategy in place for the future as they don't know (or can't agree on) what airline they want BE to be. As an employee this makes for a very frustrating workplace environment,

These are just my personal opinions based on my (mostly happy) time working at BE.

That's not trimming until aircraft leave and crew base and maint is dissolved to other locations. That's only reducing the loss of uneconomic sectors. The fixed costs will remain the same just the fuel bill will be lowered.

SOU is unlikely to be closed as its a strong link to SE traffic with very good rail connection.

I was expecting Cardiff to come up on the replies. Yet i have been told that Flybe are very happy with their Cardiff base.
My prediction would be Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dusseldorf. Will be interesting to see what happens and hopefully whatever happens Flybe will carry on as a company and go onto thrive!

Yes , but they're not very happy with their Edinburgh base !

What's wrong with Edinburgh in terms of financial performance?

As a user of GLA I wouldn't be bothered about any cuts because Loganair would fill the gaps.

maybe not but I'd have thought that Edinburgh would be more important to them

Good point mwm991... in fact bmi regional, Loganair, Blue Islands and Eastern are probably all waiting on Flybe to go under for exactly that reason.

They have said they have been happy with quiet a few other bases that are now shut even after swapping aircraft types there and training all the crew up to fly the new type sometimes less than a year after they heavily invested in training.

You will just have to wait and see what the financial types decide. punters tend to always favour there local base and think everything is great there, mind you so do the crew. But when it comes down to seat yield and competition the bean counters will win.

I do have empathy for the pax but after having several mates be made redundant by flybe then weeks later be asked to return (which thankfully they refused as they were just so pissed off with them) what ever happens it will cause a great deal of stress to a vast number of family's which won't be affected by if their base closes or not. From the last round of redundancy's I think everyone I know is pretty glad they left. Several operators are now sniffing out the crew both on jet and Q400 and also technicians. It could be they have no option with some bases if they have to many people move on. I have already stuck 3 cv's through of Q400 Captains to other mates who are looking for heavy TP drivers. A reluctance to move the family or go sideways to ATR will be the handbrake for most. Now Ryanair have thrown a carrot out for PIC time quickly on a 737-800 for Q400 PIC then it maybe carrot enough to abandon ship.

This is all speculation on my part.

Is there no way the remaining E95’s could be handed back to the lessor early with a financial agreement being struck? I’m sure there are early term penalties but this might be more cost effective than keeping hold of, just a thought!

Id imagine they'll ditch Glasgow long before Edinburgh, even despite their unhappiness with current arrangements at the airport. More inbound tourism and business traffic, so I'd guess money will talk.

Any thoughts on the Isle of Man? Currently they have Stobart Air on a wet lease operating MAN LPL and BHX. They plan to re open the base from 1 Apr next year. Some insiders who want to relocate home have yet to have their basing letters.

From BHD thread

Flybe LPLlooks like it is gone from end of December??

So your suggestion is to shrink the airline, thereby increasing the already uncompetitive costs, increase their presence at big airports and expose themselves further to competition. At the same time you want to sell off profitable parts of the company? The ATR's at SK are on a white-label deal, if they are not making money on those, there is no hope for the airline - white label and ACMI flying can be highly profitable.
Do you really think flyBe could obtain line maintenance and training cheaper on the open market? How much guaranteed business would they have to give to the new owners? With the level of expertise flyBe has built up wit the Q400 and E-Jets I think outsourced maintenance could increase their costs, reduce fleet reliability or both.

I agree that flyBe needs to focus. It might be that smaller, regional bases with limited competition make sense. The reality is without the numbers everyone will cheer for their local airport. Domestic connections at MAN/BHX/GLA/EDI seem unattractive to me, low yield, long journey times - let that market to trains and coaches. Subsidised flying at CWL and DSA is a game out of the FR playbook. these different things can work - but with focus. Is flyBe a local airline for local people or a low cost airline with ruthless revenue generation that happens to fly 70-120 sear aircraft?