Couldn't agree with you more. It's as if no one told them about Covid.

I did a day return from Newcastle to London by train yesterday, left Newcastle at 0704 arrived Kings Cross at 0940 left at 1500 back into Newcastle at 1752. Simple easy and surprisingly busy.

Isn’t that the point being made though? Start in Fareham, or Winchester, and your 07:04 means leaving home at 05:00 or earlier and back at 20:00 or later?

London trains are fine - the issue I have with trains these days is the insane fares charged by the likes of CrossCountry from my neck of the woods to Birmingham, Manchester and Newcastle.

I live in the North East and recently needed to go to Portsmouth for a business meeting.

Air: £321 (day return NCL-SOU, an hour each way)

Road: £120 in fuel plus (as it is not possible to do this in a day) another £150 for a hotel and food/drinks. This also means 12 hours driving where I can’t do any work.

Rail: £246 was the cheapest option for the early morning train to Portsmouth and a fixed return coming back (can work on the train but not keen on a fixed return when it’s a work trip). I would not have had enough time in Portsmouth before travelling home so I would have had to spend another £150 on an overnight stay.

Plane was expensive but in this case, not needing an overnight stay meant that it was very much value for money.

Not to mention the time cross country trains take. Norwich to Liverpool on EMR takes so long it almost requires a sleeping car!! OK, I exaggerate a tad!

is it Tue or Wed the launch of routes- The ones we know and more than likely some more of the predictable same?

Tue 22 launch of routes and website

Remains to be seen if BHD-LHR and LBA-LHR will be code shared with BA or VS/DL/AF

It seems incredible that Flybe would enter BHD-LHR in competition with IAG. I just doesn't add up, the only weapon they'll have is price. Though BHD is the base, BFS would surely be more niche for them offering something different. They could differentiate with a BFS route and I'm sure that airport would support that. The stats from EI being at BFS show that LHR was around 15-20K passengers per month. Might have made more sense to station an aircraft there and share a Belfast crew pool.

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That's exactly the problem, it's easy to travel quickly and efficiently up and down the country to and from London, but from Southampton it's very different proposition. A journey from Kings Cross to Newcastle in two and three-quarter hours is fine. But from Southampton, it's another hour and a half to Waterloo by train, and around half an hour minimum to cross London, with all the faff of getting off at Waterloo, getting down to the tube, the tube journey etc and getting into Kings Cross. This means an equivalent Journey from Southampton to Newcastle is often around 5-6 hours - too long for a day trip. It was just an hour on Flybe when I used to fly.

When Flybe had the NCL-SOU route it was 3-4 daily. A lot of traffic from business / commuters, VFR, cruise pax and of course Flybe’s offering of onward connections.

It would be great to see Flybe back on south coast routes from NCL such as SOU and EXT.

Routes on website
 

Well here they are…




https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....0ed7f0be5.jpeg
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....a53d4ade0.jpeg

Wow.

I arrived at BHD on Friday, on the ground were 3 BA190s, 1 BA320 and 2 EI320s. Nothing else. Belfast City used to be a sea of purple, but it’s now dominated by IAG in blue and green.

I don’t think IAG are going to roll over and play dead in Belfast.

Plus flybe now have easyJet on the London LGW route from BHD, as well as serving LGW, LTN and STN from BFS. Tough market. Good luck.

AMS, BHD and LBA from LHR. That will be interesting! AMS could be brilliant or shocking. I would have guessed there were better routes without so much competition - GLA, EDI or SOU spring to mind, but lets see.

What strikes me is that the ramp-up is swift, I hope their crewing and training can sustain it and their network will be quite complex with a lot of W patterns and shuttling of crews all over the UK. As I understand it crews are based at BHD or BHX? While I think the goal is sensible and flyBe certainly do have to achieve a lot in a short window, I hope their operation has the resilience and operational integrity v1.0 was not exactly known for.

Utter madness. Did they learn nothing from the previous incarnation’s scattergun approach?

I have to confess I was a bit annoyed by all the negativity on this thread which I thought was a bit premature giving the fact little was known but I have to say they were all right. This lot are absolutely clueless! A solitary 1 daily route from SOU and two weekly flights? An airport which was one of the biggest bases and has literally no real competition to speak of on nearly all its busy routes and yet the are totally focused on BHD and BHX where there is much competition not to mention a newly launched Emerald opening at the former. I mean AMS to EMA? Really??

Don’t get me started on the LHR routes as well, even a child could tell you 70 odd seaters won’t and never have made money there. I’m lost for words….

AMS, LBA and BHD to Heathrow. Belfast has BOTH of EI and BA, Amsterdam has BA and KLM!
Might as well set fire to whatever capital they have, this is a dumpster fire of an idea. The charging regime at LHR makes it almost impossible to make money on a Q400 without additional support.

I think Flybe have a confused Jesus complex. We are back/we are a new company.

Sadly for them the market has continued to fly. Just not with them. They won’t flock back unless it’s really cheap, in the main.

Wish them the best, but these routes are what Eastern or Loganair could have come up with 2 years ago. And chose not to.
Or a battle with IAG to see who has the deepest pockets (IAG have)

It's not complicated. The previous model was unprofitable and the scraps that actually made money were hoovered up by other airlines. Disaster in the making. Even the routes like LBA to LHR where there is probably a gap in the market is nothing without the BA codeshare. Someone has lots of money to lose.

EZY will be shaking at the knees with competition from Brum to Scotland, good for the punters but it won't last.
Anyone who has just taken a job offer with the Airline, continue getting your CV out there.

Twice daily AMS-LHR on a Q400 is utterly bizarre. Up against KLM who I think fly 7-9 times daily in the good times and BA who is about the same. Surely there are better uses of a LHR slot even if they are limited to Q400 destinations.

I don’t think the model is wrong - just that management decisions from the previous flyBe essentially dug them a grave years ago - which spiralled costs and debt which is never good for an airline. If you can get the costs low enough, and have the right aircraft for the right routes - it can work.

Mind you with BA's problems with staffing and baggage issues lately I bet to some will try Flybe rather than run the risk of BA's cancellations.

Any sign of any interlining agreements on the LHR/AMS services?

Really don't understand what Flybe are doing messing with LHR at all; unless they believe that by launching LHR services they may get more PR coverage as part of the launch. I really can't see a better way of losing money! I suppose that LBA/LHR might just work, having no competition other than LNER, but by the time you've factored in the time taken faffing about at LBA checking in, then more faffing and expense on the Heathrow Express I really doubt that there would be much in the way of either cost or time benefits if your destination is either city centre! There had better be some interline arrangements in place.

I can only assume that given the seemingly rapid recovery in the leisure travel industry Flybe are betting on EasyJet losing interest in operating from GLA and EDI to BHX and redeploying their fleet to mainland Europe destinations, hence the start date being July, rather than the early summer months. EZY will always go where the best profits are to be made and GLA/BHX probably isn't that far up the profitability list.

It is to be hoped that the investors have got, and are prepared to spend money to allow for two years development and losses. I just fear that these days investors simply don't have that level of patience.

Booking engine is live and flights are able to be booked.

Some quite good introductory fares on the routes.

The very best of luck to the new FlyBE. I fear they will need it.

A solid set of core routes for Flybe to build from. BFS with lots of connectivity and there will be W patterns galore between the 2 bases.

New website is nice and simple and easy to understand, and the seat options, Lite, Smart, Plus are clear and plain to see, and should solve the clusterf*** that was seen with baggage previously with v1.

Absolutely zero point going too big, too quickly. Flybe have access to the data that shows them the profit to be made, and with new cost savings many of these routes will make even more.

As per their press release, the plan will be to scale up and take back 32 Q400.. then we'll see even more frequency and airports like MAN & SOU & the Channel Islands will surely get some regular service.

You don't start a marathon by sprinting.

Admire the optimism but what data are they accessing showing them there is profit on some of the routes? The old Flybe certainly wasn't involved on several of them. Also, if the data is pre Covid how reliable is it? My employer certainly hasn't quite recovered on several key domestic routes in the new post Covid world.

A good theory but on the same basis short sectors to the likes of BHX nicely fill in gaps around the Med and longer routes that can’t be usefully put to any other use.

Did they inherit BE / BEE and "Jersey"?

There's a delusion at the heart of planning and positioning IMHO. LHR-LBA/AMS/BHD shows that.
From the new homepage :

Only time will tell on their success and I wish them luck. One thing is for sure, the likes of Eastern, Aer Lingus Regional and Loganair will not be resting quite so easy!

Birmingham to Edinburgh £283 on 24march

Tenerife To Edinburgh €42

Explain your theory on profitable routes?

ticktack67:

More like blows it apart!! However you have taken an inbound date right at the start of the season. A more interesting comparison might be EDI/TFS on the same date. Might be interesting to do a comparison for a midweek date in late May as well.

So what? Is there something about business and commercial law that is getting misunderstood here - or just a refusal to accept that no matter what the IATA and ICAO codes and no matter what the radio callsign is this is a new business bought from the administrators of the old business.

What is so difficult to understand??

Now whether the new business sinks or swims is another and very debatable topic!!

Doesn't help matters when the actually administrators themselves use it as an example of an airline being rescued and to pat themselves on the back for 'selling the old airline.' - https://www.ey.com/en_lu/strategy/ho...e-is-traveling

Similarities with football club sales - the holding company might be different but the brand very much remains.

I'm still not convinced saving the Flybe brand was particularly worth it. I think there were other motives and assets in their eyes behind their initial thinking in doing so but we are where we are. I wish them well!

Cavokblues. The website you quote is total bs.
Flybe realisations still owes millions and if previous airline insolvencys are anything to go by, the winding up will take decades.
Thyme opco merely purchased the brand name and LHR slots.
Here we are on the same never ending band wagon again and again and again and again

They purchased the LHR slots? For how much? Can they ever sell them on?

Ask Flybe realisations.

Ask Flybe realisations.