.
 

Yes thanks indeed you do, Inghams and TUI certainly do that - just seen on SOU page that Summer 2020 is not on sale yet.....

They really are a shower. The public told S20 flights would be released in October via 2 emails (assume they had subscribed to the BE newsletter), now only to be informed that it will be some time in November. Lots of punters already stating they cannot wait any longer and have booked via other airlines. VS have definately got a job on their hands to turn this lot around!!

They are going to have to get their act together if they are going to start feeding longhaul services. These will be booking 10+ months in advance.

Sure, some leisure travelers will book 10 months in advance, business passengers more like 10 weeks or less. I suppose it all depends which market they are targeting. One thing is for sure, there's nothing to be gained by rushing a schedule to market and getting it wrong, thus losing more money, when the objective is to turn the business around.

The proportion of travellers who book 10+ months in advance is surely quite low and their contribution to total revenue lower still. I'm sure they have far, far more data than publicly available and if they were worried about losing the bookings they would have shoved out a schedule.

They can also be reaccommodated quietly and without penalty this far out. If you make a schedule that doesn't work and needs to be adjusted frequently at the last minute due to ambitious turn around times or utilisation then you may end up paying expensive compensation due under EC/261.

Summer 2020 is out.

https://www.flybe.com/media/news/1911/1113

Patience is a virtue.

South Today just mwntioned about the cuts of flybe to spanish islands etc

Schedule
 

Flybe have just released full details of all routes that have been dropped for summer 2020.

https://flybe.custhelp.com/app/answe...l/a_id/1718/kw

Interesting list...a lot of the French regional routes were gap-fillers for school holiday peak cutbacks.

Stuttgart - MANCHESTER- Boston/JFK/Orlando and reverse spring to mind.

Delta have been at both Manchester and Stuttgart for decades however the markets have changed somewhat .

Connect the two and retain some of their loyal traffic at least using their UK partner branches as a possibility perhaps ?

Since the suggestion Virgin could use Manchester as a ‘hub’, I thought that secondary cities in Europe without or with little long haul service could be a good start for a ‘regional carrier’. Stuttgart certainly fits within that - but also Luxembourg .

Summer 2020
 

Well hopefully then Cardiff will get extra frequencies on Paris Belfast's and Edinburgh!

Virgin colours
 

Have there been any annoucements of the coulour scheme for virgin connect as yet

No there hasn't

I guess when there is it will appear here Virgin Connect

In business, one of the challenges we face is a lack institutional memory, have a look at the quote below from the above link.
OK it's maybe just a poor copywriter but FFS, from a company that's lost focus and direction, it's worth at least knowing your own history. The whole flybe concept came with later deliveries of the DHC8-Q402, the initial deliveries were "British European" which had just re-branded from the long established "Jersey European". So flybe for about half of forty years!
Wonder if they'll finally drop the "Jersey" callsign?

Don't laugh... I always use one of these re-usable shopping bags for my hand luggage when flying Flybe or Aurigny ! :-)

Buy them for CHF1 from Migros or Euro 1 from Aldi, ReWe or Woolworth in Germany. The last one often raises eyebrows from the fellow senior passengers ! :-)

Clearly, Virgin Connect colours will be red. Branson is reported as saying ".....we’ll see more red planes flying around Britain, as Virgin Connect starts flying under the Virgin brand.”

Apparently a further tranche of S20 schedules will be available for sale from 6th Jan.
This should include NQY-LHR, although one wonders why that wasn't released with the first tranche when Flybe are contracted to operate it via the PSO until Oct'22?

Wondering what (if anything) else they may have up their sleeves, although not holding my breath, and suspect it will be a year of retrenchment around core domestic/business routes.

Only other thing of note from me is that the 2 Stobart E190's have been used a lot into SOU (from BHD and EDI) over the Christmas period - presumably whilst LCY is quieter or during the weekend closure periods.

Probably as you say more emphasis on core routes and timings. Unlikely to launch anything dramatic this side of the Summer

I was advised by a member of staff at SOU airport last week, that tomorrow is the big announcement day for Virgin Connect, their future plans, additional summer routes etc. Does anyone else know anything further???

It's already known that the next S20 route announcement is on 6th Jan - see the NQY-LHR thread - but most of the Virgin/Connect news is already public. I know internal training starts soon and that the first airframe should appear earlier than their first intimation but other than that what is there to announce?

Perhaps some news about the customer proposition, particularly whether the hand baggage policy and policing thereof are to continue as they are today despite p***ing off more passengers than probably any other policy I can recall an airline adopting in recent years?

GIven that Flybe enjoys a monopoly on most of its routes and the only alternative usually is driving or taking the train, they are apparently not really worried about p***ing off passengers. With less and less competition for most airlines, the race to the bottom in domestic markets will continue.

They're meant to be coming up with a loyalty scheme. It will be interesting to know if that is the same as the virgin one or one of it's own. Will the agreements with other franchise partners that some of us have to use continue or will they come to an end. When the booking process will go over to their own website etc.

I'd have thought it would be Virgin's or maybe a long shot but KLM/AF Flying Blue?

Then there was one
 

G-FBEJ E195 flew Amsterdam - BHX Sunday 5th January BE106 and then positioned to Bournemouth.

This leaves G-FBEK E195 which is scheduled for BE3009/10 BHX-CDG-BHX and thereafter I can't see any 195's in the schedule from tonight.

I assume this is it the end of 195 era at Flybe or is the last one going to be used as a standby aircraft?

Any further news on the remaining 9 x 175's left.

Pete

I don't really know what the problem is, take the correct sized hand bag and there's no issues. The sizes are clearly dictated when you book a ticket. When I was a captain at Flybe some of the baggage brought on as hand luggage left something to be desired. It's called "hand luggage" for a reason, it's because it's supposed to be a bag to carry onto the aircraft to put a few items in it, NOT a hold sized suitcase with 3 weeks worth of laundry in it and quite frankly it was about time they put a stop to it.

You're right of course but the problem is away they've gone about putting a stop to it. Publish your hand luggage rules, then allow people to ignore them for a long time, then suddenly start applying the rules without any notice and in a haphazard and inconsistent manner - asking for trouble.

Jethro's site listed G-FBEK as being WFU 04 March 2020 (and G-FBEJ on 14 January 2020) so maybe just being used as the BHX standby aircraft from now on? Would be sensible, really, since if they scheduled it on the network and it went tech and they'd booked 118 passengers on it, there's no other E195 in the fleet to take over from it. So minimum 30 passengers would be left-behind.

These are remaining in the fleet; two of the ones that were due to leave had their leases re-negotiated (I believe G-FBJI and G-FBJJ), would assume they'll go through the same cabin refurbishment and repainting as the Q400s although it will be interesting to see where Virgin Connect use them on the network.