🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 what planet do you live on. It must be a wonderful place to be.

My "ignore list" is growing

The Q good as it is cannot go on much longer a modern replacement is vital and the A220 is ideal for the routes we have planned it will also fit well into the virgin brand


A apology from the doommongers when what i’ve stated proves to be factual over the next few days would be appreciated .....Ok it might not be 500 million it might only be 400 million but none the less....

Perhaps not an embarrassment, but a "baggage technician". Is that someone who maintains baggage, or handles it? Either way, corporate finance is probably a bit above their pay grade, as incidentally, it is above mine!

Brilliant, just brilliant!

Im not purporting to be a financial wizard but i do have contacts in the know and i can assure you the loan is in the bag and will be announced very shortly and it is a sizeable investment that is a fact.....

The word delusional springs to mind

You are of course quite entitled to your view....The next few days however will prove who is actually delusional, i’m certain it’s going to be great news for a great British airline which is vital to the prosperity of the UK

This hyperbole does no service to the argument
Flybe is very important to the properity of some parts of the UK.

You may use the term hyperbole , The fact a Tory government is prepared to invest hugely in a airline such as fly be proves this is actually a hugely important issue for UK PLC and why flybe won’t be allowed to be forced out of business

Yet another "I was talking to a mate who knows the cousin of a ramper in BHX who walked into work one day with the boss of FlyBe and he said.....":ugh:

Please make this stop, its actually embarrassing to read now!:mad:

Absolutely right, I know this is a rumour network, but this thread is now a laughing stock. We all know there is huge uncertainty at the moment, for the sake of the Flybe employees and their sanity please sober up and shut up.

It’s all about timing. In my very humble opinion Flybe/Connect are lucky to find themselves able to approach the Government after a general election when so much was made of regional connectivity by the politicians. Also, how would it look if the airline collapsed at the very moment we exited the EU.

Add to this the Transport Secretary being an aviation enthusiast who’s forays to research aviation in foreign parts have been part funded by Stobart - amongst others - during his time as chairman of the all-party committee on aviation (this information is publicly available), then it is not that surprising that the case for supporting Flybe is at least being heard.

And on the other hand - might not be great timing...

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/p...mmit-in-the-uk

Perhaps more crucially Dom the prince of the political black arts is a champion of flybe , One of the reasons the cash is as good as in bank account .....

Brigantee, honestly are you ever going to give up?

You realise all of this will be thrashed out between the owners in faceless high rise offices. The hedge fund, Stobart PLC, and Virgin Atlantic. None of this will be happening in Exeter (and certainly not BHX). You can claim to be as well connected as you like, but only the very impressionable are buying it.


UPDATE

I stand corrected. I've just seen Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson, Andrea Leadsom, Grant Shapps, and Sir Richard Branson come out of the Birmingham Ramp Office. They said they've had a productive morning and they can't wait to meet Brigantee this afternoon to get his seal of approval before they announce a £5bn takeover of Flybe tomorrow.

Scoff all you wish, it was actually cummings advisor Ms Becks who let the cat out of the bag on twitter .......

Link please?

It's hard to link to something that didn't happen.

​
​​​The advisor to the advisor...

Wonderful.

Copenhagen
You beat me to it

I wonder if she has an advisor as well, and how those she serves feel about her posting alleged confidential information on Twitter?

Some of the handling agents are down in EXT training for the change over from flybe to virgin connect. Even the training centre is done out in virgin colours. Let's hope that's a sign that things are moving forward with the transition and hope it all pays off for those employed directly and indirectly.

Back in the news...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.tel...ion-looms/amp/

Most of the story is behind a paywall, however, it does state that the cash will run out at the end of the month. Intrestingly, it also states that the investors are willing to fund the airline if they fail to recieve any bail out money from the Government. In which case, this should be the only cause of action.

If they are prepared to fund the airline, why are they waiting and appealing for Gov help?

The owners of Flybe have realised that the prospects of returning Flybe to long term profitability without outside help are poor - the investment required far exceeds the value of potential profits over the next 10+ years. I think the likes of Virgin and Stobart bit off far more than they could possibly handle and have now realised this. They also know Boris wants to be seen as helping the regions rather than just London. Thus the message is "Boris, give us some cash, or we shut down Flybe, along with airports like Exeter, Southampton and maybe also Belfast City"

It's a typical Branson involvement. I've lost count of the amount of times the "hero" gets mentioned in saving companies only to disappear in a cloud of smoke when the going gets tough. He appears to be great at making money for himself but his companies don't seem to fare so well.

Which examples spring to mind?

Virgin Little Red, Express, America, Sun, Trains west coast, Trains east coast, Cola, Vodka, Brides, Student, Cars, Vie (cosmetics), clothing, Ware (underwear, Megastore, Pulse, Games, and now Connect....

OK some were the subject of predatory takeover (America, being one)
Trains - due to the pretty poisonous tie-up with Stagecoach Virgin lost the West Coast line and simply overbid on the East Coast...

And dont forget Mates condoms

Speculation on Radio 4 last night that there will be a announcement tomorrow as part of a larger package of other Government transport infrastructure initiatives e.g. HS2, etc

I can't remember him ever being interested in "saving" companies. I think he's just always gone into various well established quasi monopolistic markets and tried to disrupt them in order to maximise the Virgin brand identity. His business seems much more about licensing that brand now, be that banking, media or transport. That's all that's happening with Flybe. Flybe is a tarnished brand. New investors wanted something associated with quality of some sort in aviation. So they called Branson.

I think a bit of balance is required here. Too many people trying to pin FlyBe's present difficulties on Branson personally as if he is some machiavellian monster plotting its downfall.
Branson is a shareholder in a company that has a minority shareholding in a consortium that has recently bought FlyBe. Blame for its problems can be planted on the senior management of FlyBe over the past few years not the bearded one. As pointed out Virgin is more of a brand franchise than an operational business.

Past few years? Try the past 15 years.

Branson and his associates/acolytes should have done due diligence on Flybe. Everyone in the trade knew it was a basket case. That was their starter for 10...They appear not to have done so and now want the taxpayer to bail them out. Branson is entitled to his share of the blame.

Actually Flybe was prifitable in 2007 8 9 It was Jim Frenches crazy plan to buy masses of Embraers that started thr problems
Saad Hammad did manage to get costs control, did the deal with Embraer and Republic to ditch outstanding orders for Embraers in exchange for Republic Q400s
and under his control, load factors and yield imcreased significantley. But the company was still saddled with the crippling lease costs of the existing Embraer fleet
He also got rid of the loss making joint venture with Finnair.
It's all contaied in the Flybereports and accounts and presentations to investors still available on flybeplc.com

I forgot tosay Hammad was doing a good job and then the board got rid of him!!!.
We all know what happened next!!!

Yes you are right, this problem dates back to Jim(call me James) French and his stewardship of FlyBe.

Regrettably he embarked on a major expansion with huge orders from Embraer and highly expensive lease costs that effectively hobbled the airline financially.

But that is all history, only time and investment will tell if FlyBe/Connect has a future.

My thoughts are with the staff and some of the more vulnerable airports like EXT and SOU, SOU especially which is so dependent on FlyBe for its viability.

Exactly this kind of nonsense. What a ridiculous knee-jerk, 'looking for a bogey-man' thing to say.
Do you really think Branson runs Virgin Atlantic?
Why does nobody point accusing fingers at equal shareholders Stobart? Or. if you prefer something maciavellian, Cyrus.
But as others have said, the finger pointing should be aimed at previous senior management.

Just for the record, I'm not into taxpayer bail-outs either.

Delta own 49% of Virgin Atlantic and as such will be strongly reptesented on the board
They may well have said no more investment in Flybe.
Only speculation and a suggestion