True, but shareholders run the show now, board largely irrelevant under these circumstances.

They did have their 'Little Red' operation a few years back, would certainly give then the scale and equipment necessary to kickstart that again.
Bit of an outsider though IMHO, i'd peg Stobart for the takeover. Remember when their bid was rejected earlier in the year because FlyBe though they were being undervalued?...now the company is worth around 1/10th of the price, it would seem like a steal to them

Why the assumption that the buyer will be an airline? Surely the "usual suspects" will have been approached before there was a public announcement?

BA Citiflyer would be an ideal candidate. I know its a massive expansion but it would be for whoever looked at it.

Like most of what mik3bravo says, but why on earth brand as EI Regional? It needs to branded as BA. That would work on the trunk routes at BEE's major hubs, but a lot of peripheral flying (eg, most if not all regional France from SOU) would have to go in order to turn the operation round. Rationalisation would be needed at LCY, where they widely compete at present.

The fact that Stobart have already started flying a couple of EMB's (or are about to) for CFE could be described as interesting.

Maybe from an interested airlines point of view is to let Flybe fold and just grab the routes they think are profitable without taking on the liabilities of Flybe

Could it? In what way?

More likely a pre-pack administration, where the sale is agreed before entering administration, ensuring continuity of service, whilst the creditors are hung out to dry. Either that or a purchase by a bunch of venture capitalist sharks such as Greybull.

Blaming Brexit ? I thought Flybe were taking a kicking thanks to EU261 and Brexit offered the best chance of becoming exempt. Not so long ago my family had a 5 hour delay on the way home which not only paid for all flights but made me a 4 figure profit. That has to be wrong but thank you Brussels.

Easy's share price is virtually unchanged year on year and they are in the same market so Flybe's excuses are totally bolleaux. Nothing at all to do with paying the over-rated CEO a shed load of "golden hello's" then ?

Is the plan to sell as one business or hive off different departments? My monies on divide it up and sell what you can. Better that than going belly up!

EasyJet are in a completely different market, largely London centric in UK, and really a pan European airline.

FlyBe is suffering in the same way as most regional carriers in recent history have, too many intra regional services making too little, if any money. In the scheme of things only the major secondary trunk routes such as those between SOU / BHX / MAN / CWL and Scotland / NI, plus connections between the likes of MAN / BHX / SOU to major European business centres are truly viable with the fleet that BE operate.

Any new owner is going to drastically cut back on peripheral, marginal services which will bode badly for some UK airports.

My money will be on IAG, restructure the routes, some branded to Cityflyer and some to vueling. Either way there will be a dramatic reduction of routes and expect prices to rise for passengers.

Alot of airlines have an interested in the outcome as flybe feed many passengers into their hubs for international routes etc. VS for example.

Lots of uncertainty for staff, my thoughts are with you at this unsettled time.

In terms of a sale, Flybe management have made a bit of a rod for their own back banging on about how expensive and unprofitable the E195s are. Who'd want to take that on? I'm with ATNotts - pre-pack Administration or just insolvency with the others nipping in to pick up the "worthwhile" routes (Loganair back on GLA MAN for example).

Stobart pick-up Flybe for a snip (much cheaper than last time they tried), operate as BA under a franchise agreement having cherry-picked the routes that will work, as many have already suggested.

Even if the above happens, likely to be bad news for even the larger bases and for or Exeter in general :-(

I fly with BEE quite a bit and the people are great - sad to see this happening.