It's the HNA Group your referring to.

Mik3bravo u seem to be clued up on this - can I ask why would stobart want to announce intent to markets before actually following through? It has sent the share price up which surely means they will have to pay more than they would have done if they’d kept quiet?

Doesn’t Brexit mean Stobart Air need a UK AOC which, please correct me if I’m wrong, they dont currently have

It might do, but nobody knows yet - no agreement has been reached.

If two companies'enter into talks which may or may not lead to an offer' they are required to make that public. Otherwise there is a certainty of insider trading.

That only applies to publicly listed companies of course and both the entities involved are just that so inOban is correct.

? I don't know the Atr, but I believe they fly 270kt max, so must be operated from 270/250kt

We operate the dash 8 with a range from 360 to 310kt depending of the fuel price, wind and if we are late. A normal cruise speed is 330kt.

More than 20kt extra .

Luxair operate their Dash 8s at 290kts...sometimes only at 240kts...but nobody told me why!

Fuel consumption?

Yes..I am convinced..but as a passenger I like to get home from LCY in 63 minutes, not 80!

17 minutes? ... The Pygmalion Irish Pub in the Grund shall still be there as well as a pork shoulder at the Mousel Cantine :)

The perfect solution: SEN-LUX. A win-win for all!

Flocks, you need to get your speeds right, we don't talk TAS or GS. The previous poster was talking about IAS. The ATR is considerably slower than the Q400 in the climb and in the cruise it's slower as well. Flybe fly the Q400 around at a cost index speed, this typically could be between 200kts and 230kts IAS above FL200 which probably isn't that far away from the ATR. It's max speeds are irrelevant because it's not that often you get to fly around at 280kts anyway.

Euh ... Sorry to say but I have no confusion with TAS or IAS, as Flybe Dash 8 captain, it would be real bad from me to not know.

To compare 2 planes, we can only speak about TAS, the IAS is not really relevant unless same altitude. Just to say, 270kt is the TAS cruise speed for the ATR to compare with 340kt of the dash 8 Q400.

Now say the previous post was about 20kt difference in IAS, if we don't know the altitude does mean nothing. I can be 270kt IAS at 15000ft, I m still slower that 240kt IAS at 25000ft ... So let s speak about TAS.
Other things from my friends operated the atr72. They usually fly much lower than us with the dash 8. Simple reason. Atr is 23tonnes for I think 2600horse power per engine (value from memories, not accurate) and dash 8 is 29 tonnes for 5000horse power per engine ...

Now saying that, I believe the atr is a really good machine, for lot of different point and I believe it could be okay a very small fleet for some shirt flight. Now to do Southampton in a dash 8, not the best but can be done, in a atr ... Oula. Sonkot always good for the Flybe network.

Flocks is 100% correct here. When comparing speed the ONLY comparable metric is TAS and any aircraft manufacturer will always quote the TAS as it is the true air speed.

As for the ATR vs Q400. From a passenger perspective the ATR is the winner hands down, the cabin is very comfortable, as quiet as a jet (the advantage of less powerful engines and narrow prop blades) and for short sectors upto c.300nm the ATR wins hands down.

Once you go over 300nm then the story starts to change, the Q400 has speed on it's side, and although operators such as FlyBe do, I am told, fly at lower speeds to reduce fuel consumption, the reality is that if you need a Q400 to operate from SOU-PMI it can. The ATR would e a painfully slow experience.

Flocks figures are pretty accurate for the ATR, max weight just shy of 23 tonnes (although the aircraft can be certified for 23 tonnes but most are 22.8) and the RTO power of the engines is 2750shp.

I would be interested to know, and I don't know, what the fuel burns are like for the Q400 when operating at max speed, but also what the fuel burn is when you start to slow down, as it would be interesting to compare like with like on the ATR to see how the economics stack up.

The ATR, as everyone knows, is VERY fuel efficient, but the price you pay for that is, as discussed, performance.

Speed aside, the Q400 is such an unreliable aircraft.

I don't know how ATR are in comparison, but the Q400 goes through components like there's no tomorrow and the spares supply from Bombardier is pretty awful.

From a passenger perspective - and my own view - they're both very uncomfortable and the toilets are dreadfully small

The ATR has a good short field performance, the Q400 can't do my local airport, one operator have re-acquired some Q300's to get in and out and only then on short sectors ... But nothing can get in and out at the moment, a BAe146 went off the end yesterday and I think they're still trying to find out how to pull it out :)

Flocks

I think you're miss reading what I wrote. Now without starting a "who's got the biggest penis in the world" competition, I too have about 6,000hrs on the Q400 and have been a captain in it for a considerable time. What I was saying was, the previous poster sounded like he was talking IAS, so that was his reference.

This is a possibility. My back-of-a-fag packet calculations suggest Stobart Group would need to expand their issued shares by 4.5 - 5.5 % to fund a complete takeover, which isn't overly dilutive.

Yes, but some of that has been used to pay down debt, and some of it has been ring-fenced to support dividend payments for the next few years.

No deal....