Within 18 months there may be no Flybe.

Well yeah, that's your opinion, that's fine.

Blimey Pete, there isn't much left if they all go. For personal reasons I wouldn't want TXL to go as we use it for visiting relatives there

It's getting interesting. At what point would Virgn / Stobart have been better served letting Flybe go under and cherry picking the best bits from the administrator, rather than take the business on - debts and all - and face all the costs associated with sorting out a sorry state of affairs?

When are they expecting to transition to Virgin

But if Flybe went under, then no UK AOC, which is in large what they bought. Add in Brexit, then it would really get difficult, if not inpossible for a UK operation to be set up from scratch on an Irish (EU) AOC (cherry picking or not).

As soon as the EU competition part of the sale process is done, I would think things will move quickly, both for rebranding and new management – I believe the plan is for one board covering VS as well as Connect Air (whatever brand name that ends up under).

ref post #1971, precisely.

Do any of these routes make money? If not then I guess they won't be around for much longer.

Re "Budgies".
Ooops...Apologies,did not spot that post re the Autair HS748`s.

May be naive of me but lots of these routes are longstanding. If they weren't making money I would have assumed they'd have been gone a long time ago

BHX/LYS runs only on weekdays, geared to mainly business traffic, is an AF codeshare,and has an average load of 77% so it is probably viable

SS

I've also seen complaints that prices are quite expensive as well but even if they do make money they might not fit into Flybe future strategy assuming they have they have one!

Isn't DUS served from the DUS base? Which, unless I missed something, is still around and has somewhat surprisingly survived the cull.

To be honest, I think DUS is in slightly another league than the other destinations mentioned as it has been around for ages and is served up to 4 times daily. Passenger numbers on BHX-DUS in total are, if I remember correctly, higher to or almost as high as to Frankfurt and Munich as hub airports. The only reason to pull it that I can see would be that yields have deteriorated massively as a result of Eurowings now deploying large Airbus jets on the route (for the lack of smaller 100 seaters)

I am not really buying that. Flybe has 70+ or so aircraft. Virgin has its long-haul base at LHR and LGW. It is virtually impossible to shift any decent number of airframes to routes that would feed those hubs simply because there are no slots available at any of those airports that would allow a decent hub-and-spoke operation with suitably timed slots. So unless Virgin massively beefs up its small Manchester longhaul operation and adds more Flybe routes to MAN, how can they repurpose Flybe to a longhaul feeder?

Manchester Virgin is the same size as Gatwick with 6 aircraft this summer

Ian

Who is the big bad wolf?

DUS
 

You are correct to single this route out due to the historical business connections and as far as I know nothing has changed. Also worth noting of course this can be serviced adequately by the Dash 8 and if profitable should survive.

However for many years it has been 4 a day and worked from the BHX base albeit there has been a night-stopping DUS aircraft until recently. However this summer and after the Connect Airways takeover the DUS night-stop early morning BHX inbound was moved to Manchester leaving it a three a day which has never happened on this route in the past but actually this flight had tailed off in respect of the inbound morning passengers and switching it to MAN is probably worth a go.

For clarity the majority of the frequencies on BHX-DUS have always been operated from the BHX base and this is the same now although this is only two services to one (last evening inbound retuns to DUS).

I think it is just reality setting in with those at BHX and we are not deluded like watchers at other airports where cuts and reductions are blamed on others rather than possible issues with the local market. We would like to think that the problem is wholly with the Flybe management but I suppose we will just have to wait to see what their plans are for BHX.

I would hazard a guess that most the European routes are marginal (reply to Crewmeal) at best using the Flybe model bar DUS/CDG but the domestics going by the fares charged should be profitable as 99% of them are operated by the Dash 8. If they are not profitable what the heck are they doing operating BHX -EDI-GLA and BHD at 7 daily in the week, even the most frequent business traveller could mange on 5 or 6 a day.

Pete

I have nothing against the DHC-8, but if I have a choice between a Flybe Dash 8 and an Eurowings A319/A320 I'll almost always opt for the latter.

Of course there are bad experiences, but it's also human nature to publicise when something goes wrong rather than when it goes right.

As an example, I've taken 8 return journeys with BEE over the last year and no problems at all. In fact, good service from the crews, as usual. But I haven't posted on any of their social media outlets to say so.

All carriers have bad press. You only have to look at Ryanair to see the amout of negative comments there are on various sites, but folk still come back for more. Flybe is going through a difficult time with its future and the amount of cancellations the other day only magnify the problem. Like everything else in the world it is yesterday's news and those cancellations will soon be forgotton unless your an armchair pruner making it drag on for months!

Am I wrong, or were last weeks cancellations not that much worse than has happened on previous "bad days"? Clearly it's never good to mess around passengers at short notice, but as in all modes of public transport occasionally "sh1t happens".

What has been perhaps overlooked, and not reported is just how much notice BE has given of the closure of the bases, and the dropping of routes that are coming down the tracks at the start of the winter season. There is more than one large LCC that would have knocked services on the head a month's notice, rather than carrying on for 6 months - good on FlyBe for that.

As the 2 bases that are being closed are Operation Blackbird bases I'd imagine that there was some sort of clause in the contracts as it would've been obvious once they released the winter schedule that they were closing and it could've opened up Flybe to possible legal action if they hadn't notified the airports.
What it does do is give the effected airports time to speak to other airlines to potentially get the lost routes back and attract new airlines to base and if Flybe do intend to carry on flying into those airports to negotiate new charges for landing and handling and such.

With the long notice period given to crews they will soon start to jump ship which could lead to crew shortages throughout the summer.
It's also been mentioned that crew in general are unhappy and looking elsewhere, that's going to put pressure on the operation as a whole, not just those bases that are closing.
Could be an interesting summer.

Flybe will only add to what are always interesting in aviation...Summers

If you read the post , its additional capacity that TUI were using on Flybe scheduled routes , they have been doing it for a few years now

Flybe finish the EMB 195 aircraft finally on the 26 th Oct as per the summer schedule

Mahon on a Flybe DHC 8 is a stand-alone charter flight operated on behalf of TUI and is the second year of operating

One would have to assume that with the winter schedule nowhere in sight there's more cuts to come in the coming weeks. That'll sort out any internal crewing issues.

Crews will always be jumping ship from Flybe just as they do from Eastern and Loganair. They get 3 types of crew - Fresh new starters looking to build hours before they jump ship / Pilots who want to sleep in their own beds at night / Older pilots who still want to fly but are looking to wind down at the end of their careers but be based locally to where they live. There ain't many career pilots in regional flying in comparison to the flags.

I`m sure that when Connect get to grips when the EU confirms it is all OK the old management will soon know

there seems to be a few cancellations today again
bb