I disagree, more than ever these days people are concerned with price first, and reliability second. For many it is 'a plane'.

Despite the 'Flymaybee' jibes, neither me, and more so MrsATN who used them more frequently had serious punctuality issues

If you search Flybe Delay on Twitter there are lots of comments from when they were operating. Even crew saying about delays… the name stuck for a reason.

“even the delays”

Twitter

It varies on whether people chose a flight based on a plane. If someone flies the route more than once on two competitors they are likely to compare them. I know plenty of people who would then say I’m sticking with BA or Easyjet rather than the little thing Flybe took me on. Irrational yes but it happens.

Surely that's just an ex crew member being sentimental. I wasn't at Flybe all that long but on the 140 odd flights I operated I can only think of a couple which were significantly delayed or cancelled, barely 2 or 3 percent. I'm sure that other parts of the network were worse but certainly it was not a sea of delays and cancellations. We shall see what happens...

Of the various airliners I've flown on, I found both the prop aircraft (Jetstream, Do 328) to be significantly unpleasant. I'm sure the Dash 8 is equally best avoided. Among the jets, the back row on an F-70 was horrible, being noisy and almost windowless.

BA318

In my circle of friends and family nobody would have a clue (or be interested in) what plane they were flying on when booking a flight or holiday

Balkan Holidays to Bulgaria in the 80s kinds proves the theory price over plane tbh. Il18 and TU154s but a very cheap holiday.

I’d be surprised if you have a choice of competitors who don’t fly turboprops on a lot of the routes and certainly won’t be competing on BA routes. Easy will deploy the fleet to more profitable routes from the current emergency cash generating domestic routes which is ironically further damaging the regional airlines who will be left to compete with Flybe.
Average flight time was 58 mins for Flybe, not long to be sat on a TP…. Price and schedule are key and given they’re going to be debt free prices should be low.

I take it the slot grab conversation is over.

Expressflight

They’re painted Flybe and the airline is not being rebranded, that we know. They are the newer aircraft from the old fleet so makes perfect sense. I bet the deal was done months ago when the lease firm bought them. Would be interesting to know if Cyrus has an interest in that company.

Let's just say it's my understanding that some of those Q400s will probably (the deal isn't signed off yet) end up with Flybe. Other airlines will also take a number.

ZULUBOY

True, except the repeat business is harder to come by if the turboprop experience is sub optimal. Having done LON-GLA/EDI/ABZ on every option available in the last 15 years, I tried flybe for the novelty of it but it would never, ever get my repeat business in that market with real jets as the alternative. The Q400 works well in niche routes up against the ATR, it's not a quality option up against jets, which ironically is why flybe made the horrible mistake of leasing expensive ERJs.

What's the top 10 routes for zombie flybe that don't have an incumbent operator? That's the proof of the pudding IMHO.

But it isn't as simple as 'which routes now have a new incumbent operator'. Frequency and capacity must also be factored in. A route such as MAN-SOU now flown once daily by Eastern ATR72 cannot be considered backfilled from the FlyBe operation of upto six Q400 departures per day. Likewise MAN-EXT, now operating less than once daily with Blue Islands. Many other 're-adopted' routes across the former FlyBe network also see this pattern of just one flight per day or fewer replicated. Obviously, covid-related demand supression is a major factor shaping the current regional networks, but as confidence in travel grows and interline opportunities open up again, additional frequencies will be required. Whether or not these can be offered by the new incumbents (who generally have very limited fleet availability) or whether there is space for a second operator to enter the market remains to be seen.

Maybe the new Flybe will be wet leasing to other operators !

Two of the aircraft will be leased to Connect Airlines based in Canada, from September, with the option of three more.

https://bit.ly/3yz8cM0?fbclid=IwAR1q...7OogOvmgOA7otw

OzzyOzBorn

to be blunt, the likes of Blue Islands and Eastern may have “very limited fleet availability” but they’ve both got considerably more “fleet availability” than Flybe 2 has (and if you’re about to argue that Flybe 2 can add aircraft to its current fleet of zero, so can the others).

There is surely a point here that backfill to the previous frequency and capacity levels of Flybe will only result in the same outcome. The market has changed massively in the time that they have been out of the game, and if anyone (including new Flybe) think that six Q400s a day between SOU and MAN is needed to serve the demand today, they are in for a nasty shock.

The size of the market today is being determined by passenger demand and not by artificial constraints on capacity created by any perceived lack of seats on Flybe routes.

And given how much these people are apparently spending on consultants to set up the airline, I very much doubt it will be debt free either !!

Indeed. They have been going for a while now with no income while paying management, consultants, applying for their license, leasing the Q400 that has now gone. Plus they will need a huge ad & pr campaign on launch. The debt soon ads up. It will all depend how deep their pockets are. If they can go at it long enough to drive others off the routes they might have a chance.

NorthEasterner

Theirs are coming from Chorus, not Aergo.

If aircraft are being delivered in the next few weeks shouldn't the airline be announcing their launch routes very soon and getting the website launched to start getting some money coming in the other way?

Knowing how web developers work, the very existence of https://staging.flybe.com/ and it being protected suggests that there is an imminent web launch coming.

willy wombat

I actually agree with you. My post made no assertions about the fleet capability of what is currently an unknown quantity. But the point which I did make stands.

Likewise, I made no assertions about specific optimal route frequency in a much-changed economic environment. But since you raise the issue, I do contend that the sweetspot is at least a frequency which provides for day return business travel on both of the routes which I cited as examples. Given current frequency offered on routes such as these, opportunities for regional expansion do exist as air travel confidence returns and interline becomes more feasible once again. On your point that increasing frequencies "will only result in the same outcome [as FlyBe 1]" ... I simply disagree with you. FlyBe 1's demise arose from a number of issues including excessively priced lease agreements for Embraer Jets and marginal routes between a number of points on their network. However, not all of their routes were basket cases, and the two I cited in my examples were certainly not responsible for the carrier's ultimate fate. Without access to the books I cannot insist that they were profitable, but I would be quite surprised if they were not.