Yes... the public have a right to know. Bit late for me as I booked my tickets for next week just a few days ago. But other pax who would be thinking of flying in the future should be made aware that their money could disappear without trace. Not just Thomas Cook and Monarch.... look at how Excel crashed 11 1/2 years ago.... they slashed fares to giveaway prices and then pulled the plug.

Without a website / online booking ? With receipts received by Flybe on its behalf tied up a potential administration process ?

If Flybe ceases trading, I can not see BI carrying on.

We have flights booked for the end of this month, wouldn't touch it for any further in the future.

The fact that the news about Flybe is now being reported by the BBC will focus the minds of those involved in discussions around new financing. I suspect that by the end of January (and probably earlier), there will be a clear outcome

I’m happy to book today for up to 6 months in future with a credit card.

remember it also needs to cost more than £100 to be covered. And while you could get your money back, if you actually need to travel you’ll end up needing to rebook and that could be much more expensive by the time you do it.

This is the concern. I have multiple trips with Flybe booked over coming months between the IOM and Manchester, Liverpool and Geneva. The problem will come that if Flybe does disappear, we will lose ~560 seats/day each way between Liverpool & Manchester with the only alternative being typically a single easyJet flight to LPL. That, is a problem.

I read a lot of commentary that the Flybe model is dead, train being the future etc but those that do say that, clearly do not live in areas where Flybe actually delivers a vital service. Additionally, in the IOM, Flybe has the contract for transportation of medical passengers to Liverpool. There's a big problem ahead not only here, but in other areas/regions in similar situations.

I do wonder also if an 'Administration' process is the best way for Connect to trim the fat here with Flybe and recover out of it the good bits, a smaller fleet, Virgin branded. It's been done before in many other sectors...

When Flybe was rescued about a year ago, it was on the basis that it was almost bankrupt then.I and I am sure others, were expecting radical changes to routes etc, since it would seem that many of them were losing money, otherwise they would not have been in the position they were in. But what seems to have happened since then has been some cosmetic surgery, but maybe not to the extent required. Do they know what to do?

It does seem odd that very little pruning of the network was carried out over the past six months or so. I had assumed this indicated that the route structure as it stood was fairly robust and worth retaining until the time that Virgin Connect became the trading style and could develop it further. The fairly recent announcement of new domestic routes from SEN seemed to suggest that their plans of last year were still on course.

no problem on either front.

This has been on the cards for years sadly i’m not holding my breath i will have a job in Feb.

Some routes were cut late last year.

I have flights booked for next week.... only booked a few days ago.... and yes, I am worried. I don't fancy arriving at Heathrow next Monday at 10 a.m. ( with BA from Cairo ) to then find out that the flight to Guernsey that afternoon no longer exists ! :-( In some way I would rather know now what is going to happen... Aurigny Gatwick return flights for the dates that I booked with Flybe are still 161 quid.... unchanged since a few days ago.... but how long will that last ?

My thoughts are with you and your colleagues, especially as there was uncertainty when the airline was first put up for sale. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for the best.

Or is the the nuclear option for Virgin and Sobart to get the deal done. Put BE in administration and rise from the ashes a slimmer airline operating the way you want with no BE and pardon the pun..baggage of the old airline. Staff all on the contracts you want leasing deals on better terms etc etc

Neither will we at Newquay i"m afraid unless someone picks up the Slack.
May have to start looking for another job, shame as i love working there.

I should have said what is available to flybe in Thier reservation system. Often other airlines will only make higher classes available to competitors. Working in airline ticketing for the last 9 years, both for handling agents and directly for airlines, I've lost count of the times I've had to reroute somebody and when going to check a flight on a competitor who we interline with, only full fare economy class is showing as available. It's why so much pressure was put on us to find alternatives within our own network or alliance, even if that may not necessarily have been the best for the customer.

A lot of people seem to think the government will bale us out as flybe are crucial to many local economies not well served by other carriers , so fingers crossed .

You're not very covered if you're left trying to get much more expensive replacement flights close to date of travel. It's always a risk :(

Apart from the €2.6million initial payment to buyout the existing shareholders what other investment has the Connect Consortium made in FlyBE in the intervening 11 months?
Have they done enough themselves to warrant approaching Government for support.
They claimed to be investing €100 Million.

Wishing everyone at Flybe well. For all of the negative comments (some of them just downright stupid and ill-considered) on their social channels, I've always had good and professional service, at reasonable prices.

I do agree that the case for supporting them is somewhat different to what it was for Thomas Cook, for example.
The latter was predominantly a holiday airline.
Flybe provide connectivity for transport for business, family, medical (and probably many other) reasons to some of the remotest and most deprived parts of the UK.
Airports like BHD and SOU might aswell shut up shop without a Flybe presence.

Hopefully the Govt will see that they don't want to be associated with not trying to help to prevent the above, let alone redundancies that would result at the airline, airports and supporting businesses.

Until UK leaves the EU (and probably during the "Implementation period" too) it's very difficult for Government to get involved financially.

The positive news, if you can call it that, is that Administration is being talked about, rather than bankruptcy or liquidation. With Administration, the operations are likely to continue, at least for the moment.

Strong rumours at brum easyjet are interested ....

EU membership doesn't seem to stop the Italian government bailing out Alitalia or the Germans helping Condor. I'm sure if the UK government want to or need to they could find a way to help.

PDX -

agreed, but the UK Government has much more of a tradition of adherence to international law.

What will being in administration do to ticket sales!

If you are a British taxpayer wouldn't one want to see that the Consortium put their own money in to try to make the airline worked before coming cap in hand to the Government. They were selected ahead of another interested party, Andrew Tinkler, who already owned a significant part of the business and had a vested in interest in making the business work.

They will probably bankrupt it and reinvent, having offloaded all the stuff they don’t want for free

People are also assuming that the price on the ticket is what BE would pay LH. They will have reprotection agreements that will mean they need to book in certain classes when re-accommodating disrupted passengers. It doesn't mean that they will be charged the fare on the ticket as it all depends what is in the agreement.

I thought according to UK insolvency laws if an airline goes into administration they must cease operations? Or has this changed since? Was the case with Flyglobespan and Monarch.

If Flybe is about to get rebranded anyway, what is the point for Virgin/Flybe to keep it going as a flying concern with all the related millstones around their heads? Wouldn't it make more sense for them to take on what is useful under, say, the Stobart flag? Virgin has a functioninig brand, distribution and marketing in place, Stobart a functioning regional airline. So taking over assets rather than the whole lot might be more attractive?

The government were talking about changing things but I doubt any new law has gone through yet.

If they're taking about administration they must be planning a pre-pack sale to... well I guess essentially themselves.

Not a cat's chance in hell. Galley FM at its very best.

Instead of coming out with a one liner, why don’t you explain to Brigantee why easyJet would not be interested in BHX? At least it gives everybody some insight into why easyJet are shying away from the Midlands.

Jet2 are the darlings of the Mids and North

With that in mind, why does easyJet keep increasing it’s Manchester base then? Still doesn’t answer the question why easyJet would not open a base in BHX.

EZY have a presence at every Jet2 base except EMA and LBA.

Exactly the route I was thinking - it seems the logical solution, unless there is a part-privatisation with the government taking a stake.

RE- EasyJet. They don't have enough aircraft to create a new base, unless they defer withdrawals of the 319's further or acquire new ones on the second hand market - which is tricky given the MAX situation especially for the summer.

easy A319s leaving the fleet this year are spoken for and heading to pastures new.