I'd be surprised if Flybe even noticed when bmi Regional went out of business. Except for those who had the misfortune to work there at the time of its collapse, I'm sure the same could be said of most others.

If this is a "slot play" as rumoured, the nub of the issue is surely that this has only gone on because of the Coronavirus airport slot waivers from the 80/20 rules. If it wasn't for that, the slots would be long gone by now. I don't know what the "New Flybe" has planned but it does seem as though the Coronavirus rules might be used and abused to revive an airline which was in trouble long before we'd ever heard that dreaded C word? If that's so, I can see why others might be quite exercised about it.

Are the submissions to the CAA hearing panel in the public domain anywhere, or is there any (legal) way of obtaining them?

There is a link to something in Post #161

TOM100

Yep. And then lost a TUPE claim by the pilots they took on. Not sure that precedent would be helpful for Flybe MKII, should it ever happen.

Flybe’s administration has been extended to 3 years

I agree ASW, it does seem odd that the CAA are being extraordinarily pernickety with TO considering how easy going they are in approving so many other new ragtag multi-jurisdiction multi ownership layered so called “UK” operators to nail a brass plate on a broom cupboard door. I wonder why?

Maybe the CAA are wary of trying to make a souffle rise twice

Is allowing a company to buy the licences of a bankrupt airline solely to sell off slots that would otherwise go into a pool compatible with what an intelligent observer would regard as an orderly competitive market ? Would the CAA risk a legal challenge from other airlines if a pseudo-Flybe was allowed to revive that operated no passenger flights but did sell LHR slots before closing again ?

I don't know the answers but it must be at least on the minds of CAA and/or DfT lawyers

airsouthwest

You do always seem to be the voice of reason on here. From what I can see, your opinion makes complete sense - I am one of those hoping for the relaunch to be a success.

On a side note, it appears that Farrell, who resigned following the CAA news last month, was listed on Companies House as a 'partner' with Peachey being the 'director'. I am not experienced in this kind of business so please do correct me if I'm wrong here, but I'd guess that his departure is not the sign of failure that many news outlets want it to be. Amongst others, I remember one article which said that the airline was 'grounded' - that very same day, G-CLXC took off from Exeter!

G-ECOJ
 

G-ECOJ en-route Iceland today, still in Flybe livery.

And I believe onwards to Abbotsford BC., to be converted to an air tanker capable of carrying just over 2600 gallons of retardant. They will (sadly) replace the airline's Convair 580 fleet.

Venture Capitalism very possibly the two resonant words as answer.

..."concluded" wrongly in some instances then.

airsouthwest

The CAA report into their refusal didn't make particularly good reading for many other conclusions, IMO. They wanted to restart the airline and continue it as legal entity without any of the legacy debt. Further to that, the resignation of one of their directors around the time of that report does add fuel to the fire they were only after a few things.

It doesn't all quite add up, the EY administrators report state that whilst Flybe has been granted grandfathering rights the administrators will want to sell those to repay creditors.

If they can grab the slots and sell them we know, in pre Covid times, the value is huge. Air NZ sold their slot for $27m only last March. The potential value of the slots Thyme could gain far outweighs the costs of a few second hand Dash's and start up costs. (I appreciate they're currently only able to be used for a few destinations but I guess one could argue that was made by an EU court regulating the sale of BMI - could that be potentially challenged in a post Brexit UK courtroom?)

If they really wanted to restart an airline surely they could just buy the brand off the administrator and restart as a new legal entity / or start afresh with a clean new image?

ASW there are suggestions the Heathrow slots have somehow been unlocked from the remedy slot restrictions, which means Flybe's administrators are claiming unrestricted grandfather rights to them. Barring some almighty :mad: up at Waterside, it is very difficult to see how this could be so, but that is what I keep hearing. If true then it explains why there's everything to play for.

I got hold of the notes of the CAA hearing a couple of weeks ago. There was a very telling line on Page 54 of the script where the chap arguing Flybe's corner said "The slots are essential to the business. Without them, there is simply no business. We can't operate at Heathrow without slots. We can't operate at Schiphol without slots there. And so on."

I suppose you can't really expect them to lay out their entire business plan in a publicly recorded hearing - who would? But with that type of language being used then there's clearly still quite a lot of shouting about slots going on. It's an interesting read.