But surely all the routes that did make money are now have new incumbents who have had over a year without competition.
Anyone in the BHX area who wants to get to Edinburgh will either take the train or wait for the next EZY flight.

EDI is only twice a day from BHX, so still be big gap for FlyBe2 to fill, same goes for GLA.

But is there demand at a profitable price for more flights per day? Just because Flybe1 flew it x number of times a day doesn’t mean that is the sustainable level of flights.

Theres a very good and fairly obvious reason for that.

So long as easyJet can fill an A320 series 1-2 daily on trunk routes it's not compelling business case that a 4 x daily Q400 service is viable alongside. EZY don't offer business friendly frequency but they do offer genuine loco pricing and a real jet airliner.

You can have either have low volume high frequency service or high volume low frequency but seldom both. Zombie Flybe have to get easyJet off their target routes as otherwise they'll be beaten on price by a competitor using an A319/A320 and also lose a load of the volume needed to make money. This new flybe business model assumes that another airline will redeploy assets out of "their" old domestic market and leave it for them to re-enter. Yet easyJet may well decide they can kill off a competitor by not doing so at all. "Due diligence" in aviation is how almost all new airlines fail in their first two years.

That remains very much to be seen. Very different market now from when the old flybe was on the go for a whole host of reasons.

"Gone : old debt" - isn't that easy to write when it wasn't your money that was taken?. Oh well, all the money is owed to those nice Venture Capitalists now.

And we are back to the old confusion - "we're not old, we are new but all are pax will come flocking back cos we are old, and we are still purple..."

What on earth are you talking about
No money is owed to venture capitalists
So much ignorance on this thread

The purple family with an even bigger 💜heart who couldnt even offer some of the excellent cabin crew there jobs back when they re-applied and some didnt even get an interview......I'm glad I stayed away from it and I've been told the ones who didnt get jobs back or didnt even get an interview theyve had a lucky escape especially when that article came out that cyras want sell..... I've also heard over the grapevine that crew who have been offered there jobs back that they need to start making money straight away. Once again current management must be in cuckoo land if they think its gonna start making money straight away. If an airline cant make money when the industry was booming I question what chance have they got coming out of a pandemic. If flybe are going to rely on business traffic they need to look at the way businesses are operating meetings done over zoom and alot of companies wanting to help our lovely planet and go greener. Things have changed a lot for airlines since March 2020.

As frequent domestic flyer for business, I don't care one jot on the price nor that it's a jet. And from what I witnessed on Flybe Mk1, very many were in the same boat, all carrying laptop bags.

They could have doubled my fare price BHX/EMA to BHD and I wouldn't have batted an eyelid. Still peanuts in the grand scheme of things for a business passenger.

But I do need frequency and I do need the right times of day. Train, BHX/EMA to GLA? yeah right. BFS, nope as well, its needs to be BHD.

I agree having flown many times on business to both GLA & EDI and the fare often over £200 day return.
I can see FlyBe2 doing high frequency BHX-GLA/EDI

Flybe 2 can’t match the previous number of flights to EDI, GLA or BHD as they utilised both a BHX and an away based aircraft. There’s no Scottish bases at the moment and none immediately on the cards.

The best they could do is two morning flights and two afternoon flights to EDI, GLA but that would tie up an aircraft all day at the expense of other routes. At the start the number of aircraft will be numbered whilst they are repainted / checked over and crews are trained plus the unknown future COVID situation.

People always compare last-minute, anytime train fares with prebooked non flexible air fares. Just now you can buy a non-flexible train ticket from Birmingham to Edinburgh on 13th January for between £26.20 and a bit over £40, depending on the time of day. If you want just over 4 hours uninterrupted time to work on that business plan, then 1st class is available.

Of course travelling to Ireland or even the IoM is very different. Flying is inevitable and I'm sure that service frequency will respond to demand. The question remains as to how quickly demand will recover and whether your business can justify losing you for the whole day for a meeting which might only last a couple of hours at most.

It's still quite amusing reading the thread.

Previous poster is correct that there is a very good reason why flight frequencies on most (if not all) former Flybe routes are much lower than they were back in 2019! It will be a very different marketplace where new Flybe is up against easyJet on EDI, GLA, AMS, Loganair on ABZ, INV and IOM, Blue Islands and Aurigny on JER & GCI, Emerald / EI Regional on BHD and so on.

I think the jury is out as to whether the Q400s will be any more reliable this time around and also whether the new CEO will prove more capable than those who went before. Yes, those individuals are gone but that does not automatically mean the new guy will be better. All of this has still to be proven.

Add into the mix that you have a venture capital backer which is allegedly already looking to sell the airline before it's even flown, salaries pitched at a level which aren't credible beyond the very short term, and it is certainly a volatile mix. My own view is that they're deluded, but that's never stopped anyone before in this industry!

So Local Variation, what is wrong with Bfs? Come March, when the new Flybe might be starting. Ezy has 4/5 flights a day Bfs - Bhx at good times. And Bfs isn't, contrary to what some might think, off the end of the earth. How will Flybe compete with that? When Flybe operated Bhd - Bhx before they collapsed, Ezy had nowhere near the frequency they have now. It will be a challenge for them I think.

[QUOTE=inOban;11160986]People always compare last-minute, anytime train fares with prebooked non flexible air fares. Just now you can buy a non-flexible train ticket from Birmingham to Edinburgh on 13th January for between £26.20 and a bit over £40, depending on the time of day. If you want just over 4 hours uninterrupted time to work on that business plan, then 1st class is available./QUOTE]

I can only speak for myself. But the example you give is dead time to me as a business passenger.

I am not paid to sit on a domestic travel service aka a train, for 4 hours plus, noddying around on my laptop trying to look busy.

I will also now need to book an overnight hotel in GLA to re-capture this wasted travel time, to see the Customers that justified the trip in the first place........and then the same trip back doing my expenses on the train.

Its not about direct cost, it's all about time.

I do appreciate that many other passengers use the same services as me for non-business reasons btw. And their needs differ to mine and are of equal importance to them, eg cost.

As a matter of interest, when you have a business day in Glasgow, what time would be your first appointment, and what time would you expect to leave home for your flight?

Just remind us all who the major shareholder is? They haven't given money to BE to go away and play planes

There is only 0ne share holder and like all share holders in all companys they want a return on their investment.
Your last two posts are nonsencical

While you are correct no money is owed. We all know how it works. This is a venture capitalist firm which is bankrolling Flybe with the aim of making a nice profit when they sell it on. They are not pouring this cash in for the fun of it. They are expecting a healthy return on their investment sooner rather than later if media reports are to be believed.