It varies. My experience was paying nearly £200 to fly on a tired Q400 to NQY and still need to add bags and snacks. And at the end Social media was full of people who had flown out with no problem and then another airport said their bag was too big and charged them £50.

The biggest problem will be when someone says “I’m thinking of booking Flybe” and then the other person says “didn’t they go bust?” And they will google Flybe bankrupt or whatever and get scared of booking with them.

Not insurmountable but an extra expense. Hopefully they have deep pockets. If they do there has probably not been a better time to launch with airports desperate for pax.

I flew with Flybe many times, almost weekly and certainly didn’t hold them with high regard. You’d watch them land early and yet still they’d manage to take off late. Did they not base their excellent time keeping stats on certain routes on certain days of the week rather than all flights? I’ve had countless delays, diversions and cancellations meaning an unscheduled night away from home with little or no assistance from their ground handlers. The crew were more often than not knackered from covering flights they weren’t scheduled to be on. The aircraft were often knackered too and dirty! They weren’t cheap either, £300 + fares were the norm. The “New” Flybe would need to be a hell of a lot different from the old one to get me booking anything any time soon.

How many former routes are left unserved? Might influence how keenly they are welcomed back.

The oversize bag saga was a nightmare and inconsistency between airports, flights from the same airport or even passengers in the same aircraft was shocking. At that time Flybe was loosing lots of cash and needed to make cash anyway it could to avoid bankruptcy and hold for the Connect deal - not it’s finest moment but it’s history. The connect lot were turning things around but it cost a fortune. I think when it became connects baby COW and team had spent 80 mil of the connect cash just staying afloat…. and then COVID struck.

COW - she inherited a pile of poo and can’t be blamed for its demise in my view - they were desperate times. There was a long history of bad management decisions and at the end of the day she brokered the deal with connect which kept it flying and staff employed. It’s too simplistic to just say she’s crap.

As for its reputation I didn’t think most people will care, right price and right time and most people will book. I think there’ll be some good deals coming up - well good for the customer. It’s going to be interesting………

Thats the problem though isn’t it. Good price for the customer isn’t always great for the carrier. EasyJet selling UK-Jersey flights for £30 one way will be a hard fight.

UlsterFly

Yes, very similar to my own experience and that of many of my friends. Why on earth they chose to relaunch using the old brand name is beyond me and frankly baffling.

Not sure domestically what's left observed, I think most routes are covered?

Internationally certainly from BHX there are quite a few left un-served: Berlin, Stuttgart, Milan, Lyon, Knock, Toulouse and Nantes plus summer only to Bordeaux, Avignon and Biarritz.

Doubt some of these will ever return but surprised no one has looked at Berlin and Milan.

I think the new Flybe, if it indeed ever takes off, will have a tough job in terms of network. Just 2 or 3 key bases might work, one of their many mistakes was so many costly bases and the amount of HOTAC, taxis, hire cars and positioning flights needed to crew the shortfall of crew that seemed to affect every base. Having so many bases, they were trying to be jack of all trades but master of none.

They presumably have.
A ‘new start’ on any of those routes (which presumably were not huge money makers before) is a recipe for disaster.

Milan was historically one of the best performers in the network until LCC competition (I think from Ryanair) came along. Before Flybe it was one of the strongest for Birmingham European and Maersk. It should do well again provided it has no LCC rival, as should Stuttgart.

Given they will apparently be using the Q400 I can’t see that being an enjoyable flight to Milan. Plus Ryanair is well known for starting a fight just look at Luton-Copenhagen which went crazy a few years back just because EasyJet launched it.

Nope, done it before and it was a bloody nightmare. Ploughing through the Alps at 26,000ft getting bounced around by the summer cbs was really not pleasant. And it took an age!

Similarly Berlin, Hamburg and Hannover as well as Lyon and Toulouse.

EZY could step in and nick the Berlin leisure market, and has been mentioned Milan is a long way on a Dash 8 - I too have endured it!

Having seen a lot of their historic data, BHX-Stuttgart was the highest yield route in the Flybe network for a long time. Berlin and Hamburg were never anywhere near as strong at any time. Hannover did well for a while but I guess the conference and trade fair market will be one of the slowest to recover.

Lyon was OK, BHX-Toulouse wasn’t really worth doing.

I had to do Southampton - Alicante on the Dash a few years back. Wasn't the most enjoyable but then neither is a flight to Spain on some other low cost carriers. Does the average punter care what the aircraft is? As long as the price is competitive and the product strong it shouldn't matter too much.

I'm surprised no-one has pointed out that a major unnerved traffic flow is from EDI/GLA to LCY. There used to be several red-eye flights south by both flybe and BACF, but the latter have closed their Scottish base; tomorrow the first flight southbound from Edinburgh will get you to the City about lunchtime. I'm sure that the market will never recover to the same size, but I would have thought there was enough to make the route viable.
Admittedly when Crossrail finally opens the journey from LHR will be much quicker than now but still..

Those early morning Cityflyer GLA-LCY flights were never normally operated by the EDI base, and even the EDI-LCY earlies were sometimes operated with LCY crews. They are only temporarily not operating due to reduced demand, back in the schedules from 6th September. Earliest southbounds from that date as follows;

0625 departure EDI-LCY
0630 departure GLA-LCY
0645 departure BHD-LCY

So all the crews will be night-stopping?

Always assume Cityflyer crews are nightstopping........! ;)

A great shame that "taking the much-loved flybe brand into a new era" involved removing it from the South West, another hammer blow for the local economy.

This new venture seems a very confused one to move it to another part of the country to supposedly start afresh, but then recycle pretty much everything from the former company in terms of operation and brand.

Either they want a clean slate or they don't, but it would have meant a great deal to the many folks in the old head office who were devastated to lose their jobs last year on account of the deficiencies of senior management to have a chance to rebuild the company they loved.

G-CLXC
 

G-CLXC appears to be in for maintenance with Exeter Aerospace. May be a sign that it is being readied for operations?

G-UNYT

I don't see it that way at all. EXT was never a major base for Flybe whereas BHX was. I would have thought the only candidates for a "new" Flybe relaunch base were SOU or BHX given that these were their busiest hubs before. Makes a lot more sense to me.

southamptonavgeek

How many aircraft have they got on the fleet now ?

The relative speed and apparent success with which BA Cityflyer launched sun routes with their E190s would suggests there is a decent unserved market at SOU, or at least one where FR, U2 and W9 cannot compete directly due to the infrastructure.

BHX seems like a good guess too, that airport has always been under represented given the size of the city and catchment. A double-edge sword no doubt, with leakage to London relatively high.

cavokblues

Never flew longer trips than 1hr30m, mainly SOU-DUS about once a month. Dash every time for me.. 2 seats abreast and the leg room is ample for us, and it doesn't take half an hour to get on/off. Bigger is not better and certainly not sardine claustrophobic A319s (I've been using Eurowings from Nightmare City... Beg your pardon.. Heathrow!) Come back soon.. All my extended family miss you.

fjencl

Still just the one from what I know.

“As long as the price is competitive and the product strong it shouldn't matter too much.”

Neither of which were what you got with the old Fly[may]be, despite calling themselves ‘the UK’s No. 1 regional low fares airline’…! Some nice crew, but an extremely poorly-managed company with terrible branding, on-board product and extortionate fares… enough to put anyone off unless their only experience had been on one of the odd aircraft that wasn’t delayed/cancelled due technical problems/‘operational reasons’ (lack of crew) AND they managed to get a ‘low’ fare (compared to usual, anyway!) in one of their early release seat sales… Oh yes, then also not being told once on-board that your flight to Malaga will now be going via Alicante first also helps… myself/friends/family had flown with them many times, heard it all and had enough. We ended up preferring to drive further and fly with a proper airline instead.

“0625 departure EDI-LCY

0630 departure GLA-LCY

0645 departure BHD-LCY”

Sorry to be pedantic, but none if these are ‘red eyes’ - a red eye is an overnight flight. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-eye_flight

Is there a technical term for a business flight which requires the passenger to be up by 04.00 so that they can be in an office by 09.00?

Don't know about technical, but I've used a few unprintable one's....

Stupid o'clock

Regardless of the Wikipedia definition, if you live on an island e.g. Guernsey, Red-Eye is what you call the first flight out.

In the trade it’s called an ‘early’, whether you’re in the Channel Islands or not.

Or first wave

Flybe have now started to recruit TRE’s, TRI’s, GTO’s CRMT’s and Cabin Crew trainers. All ads are on LinkerdIn.
so I think those doubting and claiming that the New Flybe will ever launch will soon start to having to eat humble pie…

Without stating the obvious, they're going to need revenue input from more than 1 aircraft to support that lot!

It is entirely possible that the airline has already agreed acquisition of aircraft from lessors; that people outside of Flybe2 aren't aware would not be surprising.

Saw G-ECOK at Dusseldorf last week in Sky Alps colours. A Sky Alps article in May suggested Chorus Aviation Capital had 82 Dash 8's on its books.

Plenty of choice then!

Must be a money-maker, then?

Bases are BHX, SOU, BHD and MAN on the application form…..

Hardly all the rage (as Beatie once said in a BT commercial)!