Incentives were provided from the airport but that is no different than any other airport.
As for BRS yes that will always be a drain on Cardiff Airport (even if APD was devolved one day) but Flybe have shown that if the flights are provided then people will use them, around 480,000 passengers (CAA stats are the source) used Flybe from CWL in 2017 and because of that there has been more positivity around CWL than negativity lately, people who i know have always used BRS have started to use CWL as well and will do so in the future and that comes from having Flybe at the airport. That is why their survival and continued operations at CWL is extremely important for the airport.
I mentioned BA because IAG own them and they are essentially their UK airline and while yes Vueling provide flights to the sun, i'm sure IAG would prefer people like me who use city routes or travel long haul to use LHR.

Sale
 

A question on that point, if a potential buyer wants to do due diligence what access to they get to the financials? Obviously there are the published accounts but do they get commercial sensitive information about bases/individual routes?

Just for a bit of information to give an idea of their current operation I have tried to note down the First wave of departures tomorrow morning and it makes interesting reading in parts. The usual disclaimers none more so than I can't say if it is definitive but I have used various public domain websites such as Jethro's for operational aircraft and FR24.

I found 57 departures and a maximum 75 aircraft in service (actually 69 left as I had included one DH8D not in sevice and included the Stobart 195's) of which one E175 has been at Exeter since 4 November, a Dash 8 at Exeter since 13-11 (PD), one since 18-11 (PI), one since 22-11 (OK), one at BHX since 22-11 (OR) and another at Exeter since 23-11 (DR). Up until 19.00 57 aircraft had moved today and around 3 or 4 extra yesterday. This is just Flybe mainline not Eastern or Blue Island flights or aircraft or the Stobart Southend operation.

This shows they have a lot of spare aircraft and do we know how many are owned and how many leased? This seems incredibly high even for winter which in terms of the BHX base is not particularly off-peak and in fact next week the base is back to 11 aircraft with Milan and Berlin going back to double daily on certain days for the first 3 weeks in December. Also noticeable that the jets all move regularly other than E175 "JI" which is clearly in maintenance.

For those debating what is in it for the airlines rumoured to be interested, these are tomorrow's flights - first wave only and I believe there are no overnighting mainline aircraft at Dublin, Inverness, Newcastle, Leeds, Liverpool, East Mids, Norwich, London City, Heathrow, Gatwick, Jersey, Guernsey, Amsterdam or Paris. Any additions and corrections most welcome. Formatting as usual on this site a nightmare.

Airport...….... Based Aircraft.....Time:Route…....Time:Route…....Time:Route…....Time:Route………..Time:Route
Aberdeen.........3..................…07:05 BHX...…….07:05 LHR...…..06:35 MAN...…..
Belfast City...…7...............…...07:00 BHX......…..07:15 EMA...….07:10 EDI...........07:20 GLA............06:40 LBA.
.........…........................……….06:45 LCY...……..06:50 MAN
BHX...…........10..................….06:55 AMS...…….08:00 AMS...….07:35 BHD.........07:00 DUS...….....07:00 EDI.
...........................................….07:00 GLA...…....07:15 JER...…..06:45 MXP.........06:40 CDG...…....07:20 STR......11th next week TXL 07:25
Cardiff......…...3.................……06:40 EDI.........…06:20 BHD.......07:00 DUB
Doncaster.......1......................06:50 DUB
Dusseldorf.....2.......................06:30 BHX.........…06:50 LCY
Edinburgh.......8..................….07:20 BHD...……..07:00 BHX...….07:20 EMA...…..06:35 LCY......…..07:05 LCY
..............................................06:20 LHR..........06:35 MAN......06:40 SOU.
Exeter...……...5................…….07:10 JER.........….07:00 LCY......06:40 MAN.........07:25 AGP......…..06:30 CDG
Glasgow.........4..............……..06:50 BHX......…..07:05 EMA.......06:50 MAN...…..07:00 SOU
Manchester.....6.....…...........….06:45 ABZ............06:55 AMS...….07:00 BHD........07.00 DUS.........06.10 CDG
..........................................….06:50 CDG
Newquay...…..1........................07:25 NQY
Southampton..7........................07:00 AMS...…...07:00 BHD...….06:50 DUB.........07:00 EDI...……..06:45 MAN
............................................….07:00 NCL...…...06:50 CDG
Total...……....57


Pete

I have never done and M&A deal in the airline industry but in general, any serious buyer would always get access to detailed financials on the target company. The published accounts will hardly get a second look, the management accounts are the important thing.

Disclosure of commercially sensitive information is always quite a difficult area, especially when talking to a direct competitor so I doubt the detailed base/route data would be disclosed at this stage. But then again it depends on how bad the FlyBe financials are and how desperate the management are to sell.

How many seats were available in 2017?

Flybe have much bigger fish to fry in other airports over CWL.

Plausible acquision strategy, as with any M&A strategy in any space. Goes with the territory.

About 650,000 seats for the year roughly. 73% of the seats were sold which i think is in line with their average LF.
Yes they do have bigger fish to fry then little CWL but that doesn't take away how important they are to the airport. If they do pull out it'll be interesting to see what effect it has on the airport as a whole as i can't see them be replaced. For airports like EXT and SOU the effects would be even bigger as they too won't find a replacement airline.

It seems like Flybe chose a strategy to differentiate away from Locos with smaller aircraft, thinner routes and a more premium, old style pricing structure. It didn't work. The Loco model is dominant and they now offer the benefits of the old model with ticket flexibility, bags included, even meals and middle seat free on some. Flybe made the wrong choice of commercial model, tied themselve into leases which meant they couldn't change model quickly and backed the wrong horse. Now a sale looms, if not, decline until a pre-pack adminstration can shake off all the leases and allow replacement by the ubiquitous 737/320. The airline business is now in the right hand side of the industry/poduct life cycle curve - lowest long run production costs, little innovation ad tending towards a utility (except utilities make money). The only way is lower and lower wages, automation and lowest seat/mile costs for the aircraft.

I have a bit of experience on M&A. Once a buyer has stated their interest and signed all the requisite NDAs, they will have access to everything including the annual bill for loo roll. In my view, the company will be segmented with the purchaser taking the choice cuts through a new company and leaving what it doesn't want for the creditors to fight over at pennies in the pound. The old Flybe could be made more efficient such as pooling the fuel futures but the huge disparity in spend and lack of commonality suggests that Big Virgin would see zero benefit. The lack of a third runway at EGLL and spare capacity at EGKK limits options to gather feeder traffic from regional and near continent departure points. Whether the interest is genuine remains to be seen.

They didn't really. Rather they tried to fly routes that would not support a 737/320. Yes you might be able to fly a couple of times a day between SOU or BHX and EDI with those bigger aircraft, but you couldn't offer business friendly frequency. The problem remains for flights from airports like EXT,SOU,BHX, EMA, NWI etc. Many people want to fly form these but not at business Eastern airways type prices- other folk will travel to BRS,STN,LGW to get a loco fare. I don't know if the niche I have explained which Flybe were trying to fill, is profitable in the new era.

Looks like IAG are in
10.07 today
https://news.sky.com/story/flybe-boosted-by-report-of-ba-owner-interest-11564094

Question for those in the know. I bought Flybe shares a while ago. If IAG buy Flybe what will happen to Flybe shares?

Flybe shares will cease to exist.
You will be paid their value when the sale is finalised.

Great idea - and call it BA citiexpress or connect

Not necessarily? Afterall it is IAG that the reports are saying are interested NOT BA who are indeed of course a brand of the group. Realistically there would be no gain in rebranding the airline to anything BA. By doing so they would need to align the product to that of BA / Cityflyer, so not to have yet more variation and inconsistency service offering on BAs network. Things such as Club Europe would need to be offered, a product that could cost more than they make to offer on many of Flybe regional routes if even needed at all. It also increases costs and overheads.

The best bet would be to keep Flybe completely separate of any of the groups current branding just like all their other takeovers. Being prominently in the UK, it's understandable that they could potentially allign more with BA on some of the network by increasing code sharing and perhaps using the Flybe brand on some of their routes that would work better with a single class / low cost carrier e.g the Cityflyer regional summer routes but booked under the Flybe brand and service but using Cityflyers spare capacity at these tumes

Depends on the intent of whoever the acquiring company is. No doubt Flybe have or will undertake share buyback, reducing supply of their shares on the open market, therefore (hopefully) bolstering the share price (limit supply, to drive investor demand).

In terms of what may happen to your stock, well there's a few possible scenarios which may unfold:

The acuiring company might suggest to buy the Flybe shares at a premium offer price per share that will exceed current market pricing and that could help drive present stock holders to sell up their holdings in the stock. That may become lucrative for you depending on your original purchase price per share, and don't forget if you end up with a capital gain, you got CGT liability. You may not have the option to do a bed & breakfast transaction under present circumstances which ordinarily is a method to reduce your CGT liability. Watch that space!

A lot depends on the nature within which any acquiring company is preferring to execute the acquisition of Flybe. If it's a cash exchange, whoever is buying Flybe will buy at a proposed and agreed share price, and Flybe shares will be replaced with the cash.

Or, who knows but the acquiring company might offer to replace Flybe shares with shares of the company doing the acquisition. You might end up with some combibation of cash and stock offer but anything could happen in a M&A event.

I doubt you'll have the cheque before this Christmas, if that's your driver :O

Thanks for the info, mik3bravo, much appreciated.

Why would a Spanish company, IAG, be allowed to own another British airline after Brexit?

Since Flybe's greatest contribution to connectivity helps AF/KL (I think), why would IAG want it - except to put a temporary end to that connectivity?